3D MHD Simulations of Coronal Loops Heated via Magnetic Braiding. II. Automatic Detection of Reconnection Outflows and Statistical Analysis of Their Properties

Abstract

Recent observations of fast and bursty "nanojets" suggest novel diagnostics of nanoflare heating in the solar corona. The aim of this work is to investigate the presence and properties of reconnection outflows, similar to observed nanojets, in numerical simulations, and explore their relationship with the nanoflare properties. This work explores their potential as diagnostics for nanoflare heating in observations. We developed an algorithm of Reconnection Outflows Automatic Detection in 3D MHD simulations of coronal loops. We applied the algorithm to a 3D MHD-stratified coronal loop model heated by magnetic reconnection and analyzed the statistical properties of the jets produced at reconnection sites, over about 1 solar hr. The magnetic structure is maintained at a high temperature and for an indefinite time by intermittent episodes of local magnetic energy release due to reconnection.