Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 131101 (2003) [4 pages]Solar Flares as Cascades of Reconnecting Magnetic LoopsReceived 10 October 2002; published 31 March 2003 A model for the solar coronal magnetic field is proposed where multiple directed loops evolve in space and time. Loops injected at small scales are anchored by footpoints of opposite polarity moving randomly on a surface. Nearby footpoints of the same polarity aggregate, and loops can reconnect when they collide. This may trigger a cascade of further reconnection, representing a solar flare. Numerical simulations show that a power law distribution of flare energies emerges, associated with a scale-free network of loops, indicating self-organized criticality. © 2003 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.131101
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.131101
PACS:
96.60.Pb, 05.65.+b, 52.35.Py, 96.60.Rd
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