Coronal heating

TL;DR

This chapter reviews the physical processes responsible for heating the Sun's corona to millions of Kelvin, emphasizing observational manifestations and the role of MHD phenomena like waves and reconnection.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of coronal heating mechanisms, integrating observational evidence with theoretical insights on MHD processes over the past eight decades.

Findings

Coronal heating involves complex MHD processes.

Observational manifestations include waves, shocks, and magnetic reconnection.

Theoretical models have evolved significantly over 80 years.

Abstract

Coronal heating refers to the physical processes that shape and structure the corona of the Sun and are responsible for its multi-million Kelvin temperatures. These processes are revealed in a number of different observational manifestations and have been studied on theoretical grounds in great detail over the last eight decades. The aim of this Chapter is to give an account of some of those manifestations and to discuss relevant physics that we believe is responsible for them. Coronal heating is closely connected to other magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) processes occurring in the solar plasma and described in this book such as waves, shocks, instabilities, and magnetic reconnection.