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S. K. Antiochos, J. T. Karpen (NRL), E. E. DeLuca, L. Golub, P. Hamilton (CfA)
A long-standing unresolved question in solar physics is whether the heating in coronal loops is steady or impulsive. X-ray observations of high-temperature loops (T > 2 \times 106 K) tend to show quasi-steady structures, (evolution slow compared to cooling time scales), whereas theoretical models strongly favor impulsive heating. We present simulations of impulsively heated loops using our adaptive-mesh-refinement code ARGOS, and compare the results with TRACE observations of the transition regions of high-temperature active region loops. From this comparison, we deduce that the heating in the core of active regions is quasi-steady rather than impulsive. These results pose a formidable challenge to developing theoretical models for the heating.
This work was supported in part by NASA and ONR.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.