The influence of numerical resolution on coronal density in hydrodynamic models of impulsive heating

TL;DR

This study shows that insufficient spatial resolution in hydrodynamic models significantly underestimates coronal density, affecting the accuracy of impulsive heating simulations of the solar corona.

Contribution

It demonstrates how inadequate resolution impacts coronal density estimates and discusses implications for 3D MHD models of the solar atmosphere.

Findings

Underresolved loops have at least twice lower peak density than resolved ones.

Temperature is also lower in underresolved loops, indicating no heat flux bottleneck.

Energy conservation remains within 1%, ruling out energy loss as the cause of low density.

Abstract

The effect of the numerical spatial resolution in models of the solar corona and corona / chromosphere interface is examined for impulsive heating over a range of magnitudes using one dimensional hydrodynamic simulations. It is demonstrated that the principle effect of inadequate resolution is on the coronal density. An underresolved loop typically has a peak density of at least a factor of two lower than a resolved loop subject to the same heating, with larger discrepencies in the decay phase. The temperature for under-resolved loops is also lower indicating that lack of resolution does not "bottle up" the heat flux in the corona. Energy is conserved in the models to under 1% in all cases, indicating that this is not responsible for the low density. Instead, we argue that in under-resolved loops the heat flux "jumps across" the transition region to the dense chromosphere from which it is radiated rather than heating and ablating transition region plasma. This emphasises the point that the interaction between corona and chromosphere occurs only through the medium of the transition region. Implications for three dimensional magnetohydrodynamic coronal models are discussed.