The Distinction Between Thermal Nonequilibrium and Thermal Instability [SSA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1911.11849


For some forms of steady heating, coronal loops are in a state of thermal nonequilibrium and evolve in a manner that includes accelerated cooling, often resulting in the formation of a cold condensation. This is frequently confused with thermal instability, but the two are in fact fundamentally different. We explain the distinction and discuss situations where they may be interconnected. Large-amplitude perturbations, perhaps associated with MHD waves, likely play a role in explaining phenomena that have been attributed to thermal nonequilibrium but also seem to require cross-field communication.

Read this paper on arXiv…

J. Klimchuk
Thu, 28 Nov 19
27/70

Comments: accepted by Solar Physics 16 pages, 1 figure