INVESTIGADORES
MORALES Laura Fernanda
artículos
Título:
Geometrical Properties of Avalanches in a Pseudo-3D Coronal Loop
Autor/es:
MORALES, L.F. ; CHARBONNEAU, P.
Revista:
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Editorial:
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
Referencias:
Lugar: Londres; Año: 2009 vol. 698 p. 1893 - 1902
ISSN:
0004-637X
Resumen:
We investigate the geometrical properties of energy release of synthetic
coronal loops constructed using a recently published self-organized
critical avalanche model of solar flares. The model is based on an
idealized representation of a coronal loop as a bundle of closely packed
magnetic flux strands wrapping around one another in response to
photospheric fluid motions, much as in Parker's nanoflare model.
Simulations are performed with a two-dimensional cellular automaton that
satisfies the constraint ∇ B
= 0 by design. We transform the avalanching nodes produced by
simulations into synthetic flare images by converting the
two-dimensional lattice into a bent cylindrical loop that is projected
onto the plane of the sky. We study the statistical properties of
avalanches peak snapshots and time-integrated avalanches occurring in
these synthetic coronal loops. We find that the frequency distribution
of avalanche peak areas A assumes a power-law form with an index α A
2.37, in excellent agreement with observationally inferred values and
reducing error bars from previous works. We also measure the area
fractal dimension D of avalanches produced by our simulations using the box counting method, which yields 1.17 ≤ D ≤ 1.24, a result falling nicely within the range of observational determinations.