Magnetic Relaxation and Particle Acceleration in a Flaring Twisted Coronal Loop

• DOI: 10.1007/s11207-011-9900-9
• Publication Date: 2011-12-02T10:10:15Z
• Authors: M. Gordovskyy; P. K. Browning
• Keywords: Coronal loop; Nanoflares; Solar flare

In the present work we aim to study particle acceleration in twisted coronal loops. For this purpose, an MHD model of magnetic reconnection in a linearly unstable twisted magnetic fluxtube is considered. Further, the electric and magnetic fields obtained in the MHD simulations are used to calculate proton and electron trajectories in the guiding-centre approximation. It is shown that particle acceleration in such a model is distributed rather uniformly along the coronal loop and the high-energy population remains generally neutral. It also follows from the model that the horizontal cross-section of the volume occupied by high-energy particles near the loop footpoints increases with time, which can be used as an observational proxy.