Researchers create a 2D model to explain the bright spots in the solar corona

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Sep. 1 (EUROPE PRESS) –

A numerical experiment performed by two researchers from the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC), Daniel Nóbrega Siverio and Fernando Moreno Insertis, has made it possible to demonstrate for the first time how one of the most abundant structures in the solar atmosphere, coronal bright spots can form and acquire energy through the action of solar granulation.

The IAC reports in a note that when the Sun is observed from space with X-ray or extreme ultraviolet detectors, it is found that its atmosphere is full of bright spots, both in ‘active’ solar times, when a large number of sunspots are observed, and in quieter times.

Thus, when inspected in detail, these coronal bright spots (CBPs) are found to consist of sets of magnetic arcs that emit enormous amounts of energy over hours and even days, probably through a process known as magnetic reconnection. .

Until now, existing CBP models were very simplified and did not take into account crucial aspects of the physics of the Sun.such as the energization of magnetic structures by means of solar granules.

In a paper recently published in the prestigious journal ‘Astrophysical Journal Letters’, Daniel Nóbrega Siverio and Fernando Moreno Insertis, astrophysicists at the IAC, have studied these bright spots using a state-of-the-art numerical code, the Bifrost code.

This code allows the Sun to be modeled with the necessary realism to include convective and radioactive processes that fundamentally influence the heating of the solar atmosphere.

With their model, these researchers demonstrate for the first time that the action of solar granulation on a magnetic structure of the type expected in many CBPs gives rise to hot and bright arcs, thus being able to explain different features observed with solar space missions for decades. .

The article also includes predictions of what the cold zones below a PBC are like and their small-scale structure that have not yet been approached from an observational point of view and that will require very high-resolution data, such as those from the Swedish Solar Telescope ( SST), in La Palma, and those of the recent Solar Orbiter space mission, in order to be confirmed.

This work has required thousands of hours of calculation in two of the most advanced supercomputing facilities in Europe: Betzy (in Norway) and MareNostrum (in Spain) and is included in the Whole Sun project, a program financed by the European Research Council and of which the IAC forms part along with four other European institutions.