Abstract
Magnetic pumping in the solar corona is revisited. We derive conditions under which magnetic pumping can be the cause of heating of loops rather than of particle acceleration. Candidate sources for such a process are coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Large loops are susceptible to heating primarily of protons by magnetic compressions with periods between 50 and 5000 s, the observed spectrum of the photospheric driver. Efficient heating by pumping occurs since in these large loops the density is low enough that the proton-proton collision time is comparable to the periods of the external compressions. We suggest that CMEs may be pressure-driven explosions of large-beta loops caused by magnetic pumping, in contrast to current-driven ‘flares’ in low-beta environments.
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Dedicated to Cornelis de Jager
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Kuijpers, J., Fletcher, L. Are coronal mass ejections caused by magnetic pumping?. Sol Phys 169, 415–420 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00190617
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00190617