Signatures of Acoustic and Magnetic Waves in Solar and Stellar Coronae

Abstract

Time-dependent dynamical calculations of the radiating gas in solar coronal flux tubes are used to identify features of UV spectral-line profiles that can reveal the direction in which wave energy flows through the solar transition region. The profile features survive spatial and temporal averaging through nonlinear dependencies of line emission coefficients on thermal properties of the plasma that are correlated with fluid velocities. This approach can be applied to stellar and other unresolved sources, as well as the solar atmosphere. It can be regarded as a new angle of attack on the long-standing problem of determining coronal heating mechanisms. The approach requires low noise data of high spectral resolution. Therefore, it can take advantage of some unique properties of the SUMER instrument on SOHO. We make specific predictions for SUMER data that, in principle, can test whether energy propagates upward or downward in coronal flux tubes, thus allowing one to discriminate between competing theories of coronal heating. We are acquiring SUMER data in an attempt to do this.