Alfvénic waves with sufficient energy to power the quiet solar corona and fast solar wind

Scott W. McIntosh (), Bart De Pontieu, Mats Carlsson, Viggo Hansteen, Paul Boerner and Marcel Goossens
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Scott W. McIntosh: High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, PO Box 3000
Bart De Pontieu: Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory, 3251 Hanover Street
Mats Carlsson: Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, PO Box 1029 Blindern
Viggo Hansteen: Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory, 3251 Hanover Street
Paul Boerner: Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory, 3251 Hanover Street
Marcel Goossens: Centre for Plasma Astrophysics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200B

Nature, 2011, vol. 475, issue 7357, 477-480

Abstract: Coronal heating is wave-powered Alfvén waves — travelling oscillations of ions and magnetic field — were first detected in the Sun's corona in 2007, but at amplitudes too small to explain the mystery of where the energy comes from to heat corona gases to millions of degrees and accelerate the solar wind to speeds of hundreds of kilometres per second. New observations of the transition region and corona reveal ubiquitous outward-propagating Alfvénic motions that have amplitudes of the order of 20 kilometres per second and periods of the order of 100–500 seconds throughout the quiescent atmosphere. The observations show that coronal waves fill the whole atmosphere and are sufficiently strong to play a major part in the energetics of the outer solar atmosphere.

Date: 2011
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DOI: 10.1038/nature10235

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