What can observations tell us about coronal heating?

Abstract

The actual source of coronal heating is one of the longest standing unsolved mysteries in all of astrophysics, but it is only in recent years that observations have begun making significant contributions. Coronal loops, their structure and sub-structure, their temperature and density details, and their evolution with time, may hold the key to solving this mystery. Because spatial resolution of current observatories cannot resolve fundamental scale lengths, information about the heating of the corona must be inferred from indirect observations. Loops with unexpectedly high densities and multi-thermal cross-field temperatures were not consistent with results expected from steady uniform heating models. The hot (T>5 MK) plasma component of loops may also be a key observation; a new sounding rocket instrument called the Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer will specifically target this observable. Finally, a loop is likely to be a tangle of magnetic strands. The High Resolution Coronal Imager observed magnetic braids untwisting and reconnecting, dispersing enough energy to heat the surrounding plasma. The existence of multi-thermal, cooling loops and hot plasma provides observational constraints that all viable coronal heating models will need to explain.