Coronal Heating by Nanoflares: Plasma Dynamics of Elementary Events

Abstract

It has been suggested by Parker (1983, 1988), Sturrock et al. (1990), and others that the corona may be stochastically heated, on spatial scales at or below current instrumental resolution limits, by a continuous succession of many small flarelike events commonly referred to as nanoflares. In this paper we extend a semi-analytical “point” model developed previously for solar compact flares (Kopp and Poletto, 1990), to include gravitational plasma downfall during the late decay phase. Applying the model to conditions representative of nanoflares allows us to predict the temporal variation of average plasma properties in such events and should ultimately facilitate a calculation of the spectral characteristics of a nanoflare-heated corona.