Particle Acceleration and Heating in a Turbulent Solar Corona

Abstract

Turbulence, magnetic reconnection, and shocks can be present in explosively unstable plasmas, forming a new electromagnetic environment, which we call here turbulent reconnection, and where spontaneous formation of current sheets takes place. We will show that the heating and the acceleration of particles is the result of the synergy of stochastic (second order Fermi) and systematic (first order Fermi) acceleration inside fully developed turbulence. The solar atmosphere is magnetically coupled to a turbulent driver (the convection zone), therefore the appearance of turbulent reconnection in the solar atmosphere is externally driven. Turbulent reconnection, once it is established in the solar corona, drives the coronal heating and particle acceleration.

20 pages, 19 figures, in press at Plasma Physics and Controled Fusion (PPCF), 2018

References in corpus (11)

• Ideal kink instability of a magnetic loop equilibrium
• Solar Coronal Jets: Observations, Theory, and Modeling
• Simulations of Ion Acceleration at Non-relativistic Shocks. III. Particle Diffusion
• Stochastic Acceleration in Turbulent Electric Fields Generated by 3-D Reconnection
• Fractional Transport in Strongly Turbulent Plasmas
• Clusters of small eruptive flares produced by magnetic reconnection in the sun
• Particle Acceleration and Fractional Transport in Turbulent Reconnection
• Coronal Heating Topology: the Interplay of Current Sheets and Magnetic Field Lines
• Synergy of stochastic and systematic energization of plasmas during turbulent reconnection
• Stochastic Fermi Energization of Coronal Plasma during explosive magnetic energy release
• Turbulence in the Solar Corona

Cited by in corpus (15)

• First-principles demonstration of diffusive-advective particle acceleration in kinetic simulations of relativistic plasma turbulence
• Sources of Solar Energetic Particles
• Relativistic Particle Transport and Acceleration in Structured Plasma Turbulence
• Fast acceleration of transrelativistic electrons in astrophysical turbulence
• Superdiffusive Stochastic Fermi Acceleration in Space and Energy
• Energetics and 3-D Structure of Elementary Events in Solar Coronal Heating
• Stochastic Turbulent Acceleration in a fractal environment
• Nanoflare Theory Revisited
• Particle heating and acceleration by reconnecting and non-reconnecting Current Sheets
• Formation and Evolution of Coherent Structures in 3D Strongly Turbulent Magnetized Plasmas
• On application of stochastic differential equations for simulation of nonlinear wave-particle resonant interactions
• Particle acceleration with anomalous pitch angle scattering in 3D separator reconnection
• Nonthermal electron and ion acceleration by magnetic reconnection in large laser-driven plasmas
• Filamentary plasma eruptions and the heating and acceleration of electrons
• Magnetic reconnection and the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in the solar corona