Coronal Heating from Alfvén Wave Turbulence in Solar Coronal Loops

Many scientific theories have been proposed in the hopes of better understanding the coronal heating problem. This project largely focuses on the theory that the Solar Corona is heated by Alfvén Wave turbulence from solar coronal loops. These waves are thought to be propagated by motion at the foot points of the coronal loops in which they originate. Our research contributes to this theory by focusing specifically on the modeling of the Alfvén Wave turbulence in the coronal loops. We applied an idl Coronal Modeling Software (Cms2, Asgari & Van Ballegooijen 2012), a graphical user interface (GUI) based modeling system to two active regions observed by Hinode X-Ray Telescope (XRT) and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). We modeled potential fields and based on these models, we investigated wave turbulence and predicted that wave turbulence subsequently heats the Solar Corona. From this research, we have learned that the atmosphere of the Sun is heated by Alfvén Wave turbulence to temperatures of 1-2 MK.This work is supported by the NSF-REU Solar Physics program at SAO, grant number AGS-1850750