《天体物理概论》wiki Coronal heating problem.pdfVIP

Coronal heating problem The coronal heating problem in solar physics relates to the question of why the temperature of the Suns corona is millions of kelvins higher than that of the surface. The high temperatures require energy to be carried from the solar interior to the corona by non-thermal processes, because the second law of thermodynamics prevents heat from flowing directly from the solar photosphere, or surface, at about 5800 kelvin, to the much hotter corona at about 1 to 3 MK (parts of the corona can even reach 10 MK). The amount of power required to heat the solar corona can easily be calculated. It is about 1 kilowatt for every square meter of surface area on the Sun, or 1/40000 of the amount of light energy that escapes the Sun. Many coronal heating theories have been proposed, but two theories have remained as the most likely candidates, wave heating and magnetic reconnection (or nanoflares). Through most of the past 50 years, neither theory has been able to account for the extreme coronal temperatures. Most solar physicists now believe that some combination of the two theories can probably explain coronal heating, although the details are not yet complete. The NASA mission Solar Probe + is intended to approach the sun to a distance of approximately 9.5 solar radii in order to investigate coronal heating and the origin of the solar wind. Competing heating mechanisms Heating Models Hydrodynamic Magnetic DC (reconnection) AC (waves) • No magnetic • B-field stresses • Photospheric foot field • Reconnection point shuffling • Slow