[Loops] MHD modeling of coronal loops: injection of high-speed chromospheric flows

[Fabio Reale]

Dear friends,
     please find a preprint of a paper just accepted for publication in A&A at the link:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.2198

Is the correspondence between EUV bright upwardly moving fronts (along loops) and type II spicules  a signature of shock fronts ahead of spicules?

Thank you for your attention 

Best regards
Fabio & Antonino


MHD modeling of coronal loops: injection of high-speed chromospheric flows

A. Petralia, F. Reale, S. Orlando, J. A. Klimchuk

Observations reveal a correspondence between chromospheric type II spicules and bright upwardly moving fronts in the corona observed in the EUV band. However, theoretical considerations suggest that these flows are unlikely to be the main source of heating in coronal magnetic loops. We investigate the propagation of high-speed chromospheric flows into coronal magnetic flux tubes, and the possible production of emission in the EUV band. We simulate the propagation of a dense 10^4 K chromospheric jet upwards along a coronal loop, by means of a 2-D cylindrical MHD model, including gravity, radiative losses, thermal conduction and magnetic induction. The jet propagates in a complete atmosphere including the chromosphere and a tenuous cool (∼0.8 MK) corona, linked through a steep transition region. In our reference model, the jet's initial speed is 70 km/s, its initial density is 10^11 cm^−3, and the ambient uniform magnetic field is 10 G. We explore also other values of jet speed and density in 1-D, and of magnetic field in 2-D, and the jet propagation in a hotter (∼1.5 MK) background loop. While the initial speed of the jet does not allow it to reach the loop apex, a hot shock front develops ahead of it and travels to the other extreme of the loop. The shock front compresses the coronal plasma and heats it to about 10^6 K. As a result, a bright moving front becomes visible in the 171 A channel of the SDO/AIA mission. This result generally applies to all the other explored cases, except for the propagation in the hotter loop. For a cool, low-density initial coronal loop, the post-shock plasma ahead of upward chromospheric flows might explain at least part of the observed correspondence between type II spicules and EUV emission excess.