Engineering topics

Habbal, S. R.

Publications and source records attributed to Habbal, S. R..

39 records · Page 3

NASA NTRS1982

Electron heating by fast mode magnetohydrodynamic waves in the solar wind emanating from coronal holes

It is shown that fast mode magnetohydrodynamic waves, propagating outwards from the sun in coronal hole regions, will dissipate primarily through collisionless interaction with electrons rather than with protons. This dissipation can lead to higher electron than proton temperatures in the accelerating region of the solar wind, provided the waves carry a sufficiently large energy flux.

Habbal, S. R.↗

NASA NTRS1981

Spatial and temporal variations of EUV coronal bright points

This paper reports results of an analysis of Skylab observations of coronal bright points made in EUV spectral lines formed in the chromosphere, chromospheric-coronal transition region and corona. The most important result is that the observed bright points exhibited large variations in EUV emission over time scales as short as 5.5 min, the temporal resolution of the data. In most cases strong enhancements in the coronal line were accompanied by strong enhancements in the chromospheric and transition region lines. The intensity variations appear to take place within substructures of the bright points, which most likely consist of miniature loops evolving on time scales of a few minutes. Coronal cooling times derived from the data are consistent with an intermittent, impulsive coronal heating mechanism for bright points.

Habbal, S. R.↗

NASA NTRS1979

Thermal instabilities in magnetically confined plasmas - Solar coronal loops

The thermal stability of confined solar coronal structures ('loops') is investigated, following both normal mode and a new, global instability analysis. It is demonstrated that: (1) normal mode analysis shows modes with size scales comparable to that of loops to be unstable, but to be strongly affected by the loop boundary conditions; (2) a global analysis, based upon variation of the total loop energy losses and gains, yields loop stability conditions for global modes dependent upon the coronal loop heating process, with magnetically coupled heating processes giving marginal stability. The connection between the present analysis and the minimum flux corona of Hearn is also discussed.

Habbal, S. R.↗