The solar atmosphere is a complex, dynamic environment consisting of heated plasma driven by magnetic fields originating in the interior. For over six decades, it has been known that the extended outer layer, the corona, is much hotter than the underlying layers closer to the sun’s surface. Why this is so however remains one of the most puzzling unanswered questions in astrophysics.

Satellite and ground-based observations in recent years have yielded evidence of a rich variety of magnetic structures occurring under a wide range of conditions, leading to the conclusion that the sun’s atmosphere may no longer be viewed in terms of simple, gravitationally stratified layers. Researchers are now concentrating on studying these structures to answer the question of why the corona is so hot and a number of coronal heating theories have been postulated.

Our research effort focuses on using a 3-D magnetohydrodyamic (MHD) modeling program with a variable mesh and multi processors to study the plasma dynamics and energy transport processes possibly at work in these structures.