di Elise Mesenbring - Solar Physics REU 2014

Elise Mesenbring

REU Student - Summer 2014
Montana State University

Home Institution : Gustavus Adolphus College

Contact : emesenbr@gustavus.edu

Office : EPS 230

Advisor : Piet Martens and Joseph Plowman

Summer Photos : Majestic Montana!


Research project

This summer I'm working on looking at the coronal heating problem. This problem arises from the fact that the corona of the sun is much hotter than the photosphere. Going out from the core of the sun (~15.6 million K) you first reach the photosphere (~5780 K) and common sense would lead you to assume that as you get even further away from the energy generating core, the temperature would continue to decrease. This is not true, however. As you go out further from the photosphere to the corona the temperature rises very rapidly to a few million K. This temperature change is very counterintuitive and brings us to the question of how the corona and its coronal loops are heated because we know that in order to obey the 2nd law of thermodynamics this heating must be done by a non-thermal process.

Coronal loops are constrained by the solar magnetic field. They are anchored in the photosphere at opposite magnetic polarity footpoints, and extend into the corona. We want to examine various coronal loops from EIS raster images and AIA cutouts to create a catalog of various measurable coronal loop parameters. From these values, we can calculate an estimated best fit heating parameter for each loop, which will help us find constraints on heating mechanisms for coronal loops. Positive heating parameters tell us the loops are heated from the top of the loop, negative heating parameters mean the loops are heated from the footpoints, and in the case that the heating parameter is zero we know the loops are heated uniformly. We hope to find in which way the loops are heated and eliminate some possibilities of heating mechanisms.


Research log

Weeks 1-3 : Getting to know Bozeman!

Weeks 4-6 : Success & Frustration