Abstract
We suggest that the solar corona is stationarily heated by Joule dissipation of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. This turbulence is continuously being fed by subphotospheric convective motions at very low wavenumbers where the plasma can be considered ideal. The cascade process due to the nonlinear interaction of the turbulent modes, effectively transfers energy to even shorter wavenumbers until Joule effect becomes dominant and converts the cascading magnetic energy into heat.
Assuming that a stationary spectrum is established, we show that MHD turbulence naturally provides a way of enhancing the Joule dissipation of macroscopic magnetic stresses and a heating rate can be derived.
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Gómez, D., Fontán, C.F. Coronal heating by selective decay of MHD turbulence. Sol Phys 116, 33–44 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00171713
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00171713