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Magnetic Reconnection in Solar Flares [Slides]

Boland, Teresa Marie·Guo, Fan·Waters, Timothy Ray
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Abstract

Magnetic reconnection is the underlying mechanism in solar flares. Magnetic reconnection is an astrophysical process in an electrically conducting plasma where neighboring magnetic field lines running anti-parallel break and reconnection therefore exchanging the direction of their paths. The result of this process is the magnetic field energy converting to kinetic and thermal energy which is explosively released. The scale of a solar is extremely large compared to Earth so kinetic simulations are unable to portray an accurate model. In this project, we are using an astrophysical magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation code known as Athena++ with the reconnection problem generator file created by Li et al. 2018. To further study this simulation, we began testing a heating/cooling term. The results of the original file will be compared with the modified file with an implemented heating/cooling term to better understand how solar flares function.

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79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICSAstronomy and AstrophysicsHeliospheric and Magnetospheric Physics

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Boland, Teresa Marie, Guo, Fan, Waters, Timothy Ray. 2023-12-05. Magnetic Reconnection in Solar Flares [Slides]. https://doi.org/10.2172/2228649

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