Understanding coronal rain dynamics through a point-mass model

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Hillier, Andrew, Oliver, Ramon, Martínez-Gómez, David
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Hillier, Andrew
Oliver, Ramon
Martínez-Gómez, David
author_facet Hillier, Andrew
Oliver, Ramon
Martínez-Gómez, David
contents Observations and simulations of coronal rain show that as cold and dense plasma falls through the corona it initially undergoes acceleration by gravity before the downward velocity saturates. Simulations have shown the emergence of an unexpected relation between terminal velocity of the rain and density ratio that has not been explained. Our aim is to explain this relation. In this paper we develop a simple point-mass model to understand how the evolution of the ambient corona moving with the coronal rain drop can influence the falling motion. We find that this simple effect results in the downward speed reaching a maximal value before decreasing, which is consistent with simulations with realistic coronal rain mass. These results provide an explanation for the scaling of the maximum downward speed to density ratio of the rain to the corona and as such provide a new tool that may be used to interpret observations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_11327
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Understanding coronal rain dynamics through a point-mass model
Hillier, Andrew
Oliver, Ramon
Martínez-Gómez, David
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Observations and simulations of coronal rain show that as cold and dense plasma falls through the corona it initially undergoes acceleration by gravity before the downward velocity saturates. Simulations have shown the emergence of an unexpected relation between terminal velocity of the rain and density ratio that has not been explained. Our aim is to explain this relation. In this paper we develop a simple point-mass model to understand how the evolution of the ambient corona moving with the coronal rain drop can influence the falling motion. We find that this simple effect results in the downward speed reaching a maximal value before decreasing, which is consistent with simulations with realistic coronal rain mass. These results provide an explanation for the scaling of the maximum downward speed to density ratio of the rain to the corona and as such provide a new tool that may be used to interpret observations.
title Understanding coronal rain dynamics through a point-mass model
topic Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.11327