English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

One proposed resolution to the long-standing problem of solar coronal heatinginvolves the buildup of magnetic energy in the corona due to turbulent motionsat the photosphere that braid the coronal field, and the subsequent release ofthis energy via magnetic reconnection. In this paper the ideal relaxation ofbraided magnetic fields modelling solar coronal loops is followed. A sequenceof loops with increasing braid complexity is considered, with the aim ofunderstanding how this complexity influences the development of small scales inthe magnetic field, and thus the energy available for heating. It isdemonstrated that the ideally accessible force-free equilibrium for thesebraided fields contains current layers of finite thickness. It is further shownthat for any such braided field, if a force-free equilibrium exists then itshould contain current layers whose thickness is determined by length scales inthe field line mapping. The thickness and intensity of the current layersfollow scaling laws, and this allows us to extrapolate beyond the numericallyaccessible parameter regime and to place an upper bound on the braid complexitypossible at coronal plasma parameters. At this threshold level the braided loopcontains $10^{26}$--$10^{28}{\rm ergs}$ of available free magnetic energy, morethan sufficient for a large nanoflare.

The structure of current layers and degree of field line braiding in coronal loops