General Physics Seminar 4 November 2004


Forward modelling of coronal funnels in the solar atmosphere

Tayeb AIOUAZ
Kiepenheuer-Institut fuer Sonnenphysik Schoeneckstr. 6, 79104 Freiburg (Germany)


Magnetism is the key to understand the nature of the processes that heat the solar corona and accelerate the solar wind. At the chromospheric heights the magnetic flux is concentrated at the boundaries of the supergranular flow cells. Towards the corona the magnetic field expands to fill the whole volume and forms funnel-like structures called "coronal funnels". Based on these early observations models were developed accounting for the magnetic expansion as well as for the energetics of the solar atmosphere. To study the properties of coronal funnels and their role in accelerating the solar wind close to the Sun we employed a new 2D MHD time dependent model including the solar atmosphere all the way from the chromosphere to the corona. From the results of the MHD calculation we derive the resulting profiles of various emission lines formed in the transition region from the chromosphere to the corona. This allows us e.g. a detailed comparison of the model results with observations.