Heating the Quiet Corona by Nanoflares: Evidence and Problems

Abstract

The content of coronal material in the quiet Sun is not constant as soft X-ray and high-temperature EUV line observations have shown. New material, probably heated and evaporated from the chromosphere is occasionally injected even in the faintest parts above the magnetic network cell interiors. Assuming that the smaller events follow the pattern of the well observed larger ones, we estimate the total energy input. Various recent analyses are compared and discussed. The results using similar EUV data from EIT/SOHO and TRACE basically agree on the power-law exponent when the same method is used. The most serious deviations are in the number of nanoflares per energy unit and time unit. It can be explained only partially by different thresholds for flare detection.