ANOMALOUS COOLING OF CORONAL LOOPS WITH TURBULENT SUPPRESSION OF THERMAL CONDUCTION

Abstract

We investigate the impact of turbulent suppression of parallel heat conduction on the cooling of post-flare coronal loops. Depending on the value of the mean free path associated with the turbulent scattering process, we identify four main cooling scenarios. The overall temperature evolution, from an initial temperature in excess of 10 7  K, is modeled in each case, highlighting the evolution of the dominant cooling mechanism throughout the cooling process. Comparison with observed cooling times allows the value of to be constrained, and interestingly this range corresponds to situations where collision-dominated conduction plays a very limited role, or even no role at all, in the cooling of post-flare coronal loops.