Hydrodynamics of Small Transient Brightenings in the Solar Corona

Abstract

Abstract Small scale transients occur in the solar corona at much higher frequencies than flares and play a significant role in coronal dynamics. Here we study three well-identified transients discovered by Hi-C and also detected by the EUV channels of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory. We use 0D enthalpy-based hydrodynamical simulations and produce synthetic light curves to compare with AIA observations. We have modeled these transients as loops of ∼1.0 Mm length depositing energies ∼1023 erg in ∼50 s. The simulated synthetic light curves show reasonable agreement with the observed light curves. During the initial phase, conduction flux from the corona dominates over the radiation, like impulsive flaring events. Our results further show that the time-integrated net enthalpy flux is positive, hence into the corona. The fact that we can model the observed light curves of these transients reasonably well by using the same physics as those for nanoflares, microflares, and large flares, suggests that these transients may have a common origin.