Characterisation of small-scale heating events in the solar atmosphere from 3D MHD simulations and their potential role in coronal heating

Abstract:

The physical mechanism that heats the solar corona is one of the still open science questions in solar physics. One of the proposed mechanism for coronal heating are nanoflares. To investigate their role in coronal heating we study the properties of the small-scale heating events in the solar atmosphere using 3D MHD simulations. We present a method to identify and track these heating events in time which allows us to study their life time, energy, and spectral signatures. These spectal signatures will be compared with available spectrosopic observations obtained with IRIS and SUMER. Ultimately, these results will be important for the coordinated scientific exploitation of SPICE and EUI along with other instruments onboard Solar Orbiter to address the coronal heating problem.