Is it fusion in the solar corona?

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Enos
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Is it fusion in the solar corona?

Post by Enos »

Hello fusioneers!

I have been working on this hypothesis for quite some time now, a hypothesis which may turn solar physics upside down. A couple of years ago I suggested that fusion reactions in the Sun's corona heats the corona to million of degrees. This could explain the coronal heating problem and a lot of other unexplained solar observations.

I have tried to evaluate this hypothesis for some time no, and I only find more and more evidence that strengthen the hypothesis. But it seems like no established solar scientific establishment wants to evaluate my hypothesis, and they are neither experts in accelerator based fusion, so I was wondering if you could take a look at it?

In the attached document I summarize the hypothesis and parts of the evaluation process. I hope you enjoy the document!

Enos Øye, Norway
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: Is it fusion in the solar corona?

Post by Dennis P Brown »

Your main point, that some fusion in the outer corona is what provides its heating, is interesting and easy to test on basic principles - just calculate the amount of fusion required to heat that volume and pressure of gas to the temperature observed. This will yield the required number of fusion events needed and offer a basic approach that is testable. That is, helium enrichment over that observed on the surface of the Sun compared to the corona must match what is observed in the corona.

By the way, is there a measured helium difference? Without addressing this issue, you really have no bases for your idea.

As for your speculation that the Sun has a solid/liquid core like the Earth's is pointless and counter productive to your basic idea. People have carefully done the calculation of fusion under the conditions that the core would be at using well-understood thermodynamic equations. Your idea that this is all wrong is a claim that undermines your credibility. Again, this has nothing to do with your primary idea of fusion occurring in the corona causing it to be heated to observed temperatures.

No one will take your corona heating by fusion (rather than the currently accepted idea of magnetic flux) serious if you propose such extreme physics without massive theoretical proof using known states of matter about the interior state of the Sun.

Your claim that the solar missing neutrino problem can be solved by heavier element fusion is wrong on a number of points but I'll just address the main one. Neutrino oscillation does give the precise number for the issue and this has fully answered that problem. This ocillation of neutrino's has been seen/proven in the lab! You need to read current research before putting forth such extreme claims.

The ONLY issue that isn't fully solved (but has been mostly answered) is corona heating and you should stick with that issue and not argue against proven and extremely well understood physics. Finally, until you read more on current ideas on corona heating, and then show that these ideas are wrong, you are wasting your time.
Enos
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Re: Is it fusion in the solar corona?

Post by Enos »

I might have gone too far with my hypothesis. So even if a partly solid solar interior solves, the photosphere cooling problem, that everything beneath the tachocline rotates as one body, the surface flows of the sun, the core of the electromagnet and many more observations, we can stick to the simple question if fusion in the solar Corona is possible or not. That's what I really want to know, and I was kind of hoping you could use your expertise in this field to help me out.

The discussion of the solar neutrino problem and the solution we may have found are by many looked upon as a final solution. I researched this some time ago and it is some room for discussion on this topic which may be best suited in another thread.

Thanks for the tip of sticking to the corona heating problem. I did that mistake once before, I had this nice dialog going with some solar physicists, which was not able to disprove the hypothesis. Then I took fusion out of the core to explain all observations, and at the same moment I took my credibility away. They tried to prove me wrong, but where not able to, so they left the scientific method and dismissed the hypothesis because it goes against accepted science. Its controversial even for non solar physicists, so let us here stick to the problem if fusion in the solar corona is possible or not.

I'll check about the helium difference, I looked into this a year ago so I'll check my notes. There are also more heavy elements further down in the photosphere, but we are not going there. Thanks!
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Re: Is it fusion in the solar corona?

Post by Frank Sanns »

Enos,

If you have a GOOD source of data of composition, ions, temperature of the surface and atmosphere of the sun, please post it. There is so much junk online that it is hard to know what data is reliable.

Frank Sanns
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We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
Dan Tibbets
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Coronal fusion

Post by Dan Tibbets »

Coral heating has been discussed here before. The question if fusion occurs in the corona is different from asking if Coronal fusion heats the Corona. The temperature in the Corona of several million degrees is enough for some P-P fusion to occur. But it would be very rare compared to the core for two reasons. The fusion rate is proportional to the temperature related fusion cross section, and the density.

The P-P fusion cross section increases at ~ the 4th power of temperature. If the cross section is ~ 10^-45 power in the 15 million degree core, the cross section in the ~2 million degree corona would be ~ 1/2400th of that.
The density of the Corona is perhaps ~ 0.000000001 of an atmosphere or less. The density in the core is ~ 100,000 atmospheres. That is a difference of ~ 10^14 or 100,000,000,000,000 Fusion scales as the square of the density so the fusion rate based on these well accepted numbers would be ~ 10^28 times less per unit of volume of the Corona compared to the core. If I am very generous with the volume differences, and ignore pressure/ density drop off as you travel further out into the corona, the you may gain total fusion in the Corona by a factor of a few thousand. Still, that leaves a difference of ~ 10^25 in the amount of fusion between the core and Corona. If you then incorporate the fusion cross section at the different temperatures you are back to ~ 10^-28 Coronal fusion rates compared to core rates.

If there is fusion in the Corona, it is extremely trivial. I don't know how much this amount of fusion would heat the very rarefied gas of the Corona, but I suspect it is trivial compared to the heat loss from the Corona from black body radiation, etc. So Cronal fusion would probably not support the temperature of the Corona. And, compared to the total fusion output of the Sun, it is totally insignificant.

The P-P fusion process is the only path to consider here. The CNO fusion cycle at the Sun's core temperature of ~ 15 million degrees is ~ 10% that of the P-P chain. At ~2 million degree Coronal temperatures the CNO contribution would be a ~ billion billion times less than the P-P fusion rate (the CNO fusion rate changes at ~ 10^16 to 18 power of the temperature in the temperature ranges of interest).

Unless you are throwing out multiple accepted physics processes and incorporating wild unknown physics, the position that coronal fusion has any significance what so ever is unsupported.

Dan Tibbets
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Chris Bradley
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Re: Is it fusion in the solar corona?

Post by Chris Bradley »

Hello Enos,

What you have to understand about fusion is that it is very very unlikely to happen.

Let me explain...

There are 3 types of fusion reactions - strong force mediated fusions (which are the most likely), electromagnetic mediated fusions (typically about 3 or 4 orders of magnitude lower than strong force reactions) and weak force fusions (typically about 20 oom less than strong force - yup, 20 oom).

Guess what proton-proton fusions are? They are weak force fusions!

We can look at the probability of fusion based on mean distance for a fusion particle to travel before it is likely to fuse. In the fusors discussed here, deuterium is accelerated in a medium of the order of 10^21 particles per cm^3. At that density, an average deuteron has to travel around one million kilometres before it fuses with the background (which is a strong force reaction).

So a proton would have to travel around 10^26 kilometres, on average, before it fuses in a 10^21/cm^3 environment. But in the corona, which is 10^9/cm^3, it'd have to travel some 10^38 km, on average, before it fuses.

So we can now look at the probability of a pp fusion in the corona. I think the corona peaks at around 20,000 km depth (is that right?). So on average, one proton in every 10^34 might undergo a pp fusion as it passes through the corona.

I have read that the solar wind consists of a loss of some million tons of solar mass per second, which if it were all protons would be some 10^36 protons per second. That gives us a grand total pp fusion rate of 100 per second, for the whole of the corona.

pp reactions consist of releasing 1.2MeV worth of thermal particles per reaction, so that adds up, in this rough and ready calculation, to the grand total of 120MeV of energy per second resulting from pp fusions. In Watts, that's a somewhat disappointing 20 picoWatts.

OK, so scrub thinking about pp reactions. Instead, one could look at some more 'serious' reactions. In the heart of the Sun, deuterium is generated as part of the pp cycle. But given the proton density, there would be so few DD reactions that I'll not even bother to think about it. Instead, all the deuterium gets swallowed up in D+p reactions that leads to 3He.

Statistically none of the D is likely to find its way out of the Sun, it'll all get reacted with protons on the way out (which is why you won't see many DD neutrons), but the 3He doesn't react well with protons, rather it tends to react with itself. I do not know the composition or velocity of 3He in the solar wind, but 3He+3He reactions would probably produce more power in the corona than pp, because this is a strong mediated reaction and is more likely to react that most other combinations.

Also to note are other certain reactions that are very favourable to proton fusions. The reaction with the highest cross section is with boron 11. I have no idea how much boron 11 there is in the corona, but I'd bet money on there being more p+11B reactions than pp.

However, the one I think is probably the most likely is a 'favourite' of mine, the p+15N reaction. This is only an EM mediated reaction (the p+11B is a strong one, so is more likely, if there were any 11B). But with the p+15N reaction you are on to a good bet of finding some 15N in there because it is one of the products of the CNO cycle, for which the Sun is just hot enough to run. Not by much, mind. most of it is pp. But I'd hazard a guess that the emissions of 15N from the Sun into the corona will probably add up to that reaction being the most likely.

I've no idea how much power it would generate, but I'd put money on it being several orders of magnitude more than pp reactions - maybe even a full Watt of power throughout the whole corona!!!

Sorry about that, I don't mean to make your theory sound so bad, but it is just about facing the reality of the miserable specific power density of fusion plasmas in such rarefied environments. Feel free to go over the maths - I haven't gone over the calculation estimates again because the first answers I got on my calculator are pretty much what I expected. Even if I'm out by 10's of oom, we're still talking paltry power levels compared with the energy flux out of the Sun.

In reality, the space above the Sun must be so tortured by gravitational and magnetic field disturbances that it seems inevitable that these will be the bigger source of heating than fusion within the corona. It is such a rarefied region of space - 12 oom lower than even in a fusor - that particles will be able to circulate and recirculate around magnetic field lines almost indefinitely if there are the right forms of EM frequencies to excite such particles into ion cyclotronic accelerations. Their energies would just keep on building and building if they were undergoing such accelerations but not colliding with any other media.
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Re: Is it fusion in the solar corona?

Post by Enos »

Hello gentlemen! I appreciate your answers.

I read from your answers that fusion in the corona is highly unlikely, but you don't say these measurements show it’s impossible, so I take that as a good sign. I like to make things work, but if its impossible it might not be worth the effort.

My first attempt to explain coronal fusion was rather simple, it was a fusor mechanism!
The photosphere is today described as a thin cold layer of gas between plasma. Based on several observations(like negative hydrogen anions in the photosphere), and some of my own ideas, I hypothesized the photosphere to be relatively negatively charged to the highly ionized corona. So I kind of got a photospheric cathode and a coronal anode. At the anode/corona it is observed strong ionization and at the cathode/photosphere its the formation of negative ions. The reason why the electrons of the corona don't go to the photosphere and cancel out the electric field is that electrons are severely bent by the solar magnetic field and can hardly make the journey. And if they do, they will gyrate in the magnetic field and lead to further ionization and get accelerated to such a velocity that they shoot through/past the anode like in a Crookes tube.This led me to a mechanism where a simple hydrogen or hydrogen anion get accelerated towards the anode/corona, where it will be ionized and become a proton which can be accelerated back to the cathode/photosphere, on the way it will hit something as the density goes up. I made a drawing of this mechanism which I have attached, but it might need a update. I sent this to many plasma and solar scientists, but they where not able to evaluate the idea. You are the experts so please take a look at it.

We don't know the proton content of the corona, because protons are fully ionized and don't have emission lines, so the corona could be swirling with positive protons, which can get accelerated back to the Sun(other light fully ionized elements like helium is also hard to measure). I guess this potentially can solve the problem with the number of proton-proton weak fusion reactions, as Chris explained. It’s also a nice fusor with a cathode that don't burn up. So we may have a lot of p-processes going on which may create neutrons and heavier elements, and some other interesting processes/collisions. Other elements can also be accelerated up and down by this fusor “elevator” and give further reactions. We can also add some gyration in the magnetic field(the particle will have a path like all the ways you can drag out a slinky), and the path becomes longer and the chance of collisions increases.

I don't think this elevator can account for all fusion reactions, but the proton-proton or proton-something collisions may make some neutrons, which is essential for further fusion. Electron capture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_capture)may then also be a possibility.

And the corona is the hottest place in the heliosphere, with a temperature of up to 200 million Kelvins! See section 1.3 "Observations of O+5 in coronal holes show temperatures of up to 200MK at 2 R" in the thesis attached. Something is going on and fusion is my strongest bet. We also observe coronal funnels where plasma is confined, you can see on a picture of a solar eclipse(http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100316.html) and see that the plasma in the corona are pulled out in compressed strains, which I suspect also are electric currents.

I really like this plasma pinch fusion principle by electric (Birkeland) currents. We have found large vortex currents coupled to the auroras on Earth, if the Sun has something similar the compression and collision of already several million degree hot particles are creating some reactions. We may also have some interesting solar circuits. But this is a theme of its own so I have to expand on this and other mechanisms in other posts.
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Chris Bradley
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Re: Is it fusion in the solar corona?

Post by Chris Bradley »

Enos Oye wrote:
> We don't know the proton content of the corona, because protons are fully ionized and don't have emission lines
Instead, it has been measured by absolute photometry, wrt background stars as illumination references, and by polarimetry to determine electron densities. The corona will be generally neutral and so this gives proton density. ~10^9/cm^3

> .. the proton-proton or proton-something collisions may make some neutrons, which is essential for further fusion.
Nope. As I explained, no proton reactions likely to occur here will give neutron emissions. Only the DD is plausible, in so far as there is a finite probability of D-D collisions, but little D will make it out.

In regards the actual question, why is the corona so hot, it is self-evident that there are a host of mechanisms that would pump energy into that region of plasma. So how about asking a different question - with such a thin proton plasma, what mechanisms would give rise to energy loss? I pose this, because if energy is readily going in but little is going out (until it hits several keV X-ray emitting temperatures before it gets to thermal equilibrium), and that it is all in a vacuum, then it's gonna get real hot!!
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Re: Is it fusion in the solar corona?

Post by Dan Tibbets »

Some local hot spots in the corona may lead to increased fusion cross sections, but remember that this represents small regions and a relatively small portion of the Corona, thus the rate per cubic meter may be higher in these local regions, the contribution may still be small compared to the average corona due to the very large (?) differences in volume. It might be similar in a simple fasion to considering a thermalized plasma. The resulting fusion may occur in the high energy tail. The problem is that this high energy thermal tail only makes up a small portion of the total plasma. This is one of the problems that Tokamaks wrestle with. The numbers that ChrisMB gave illistrates the problem. Even if local hot spots could lead to total Coronal fusion ratesby 9 orders of magnitude, the output would be comparable to one terrestrial nuclear plant. This compared to the total Solar fusion output is stupendiously trivial.

As for detecting Coralal fusion neutrons. There are possibly two sources. The neutrons produced in the first step of the P-P reaction or D-D fusion. The deuterium (D) may surviving the upper layers of the Sun, though I don't know if it has been demonstrated spectroscopically. Certainly any deuterium in the Solar core is fused quickly in the first stages of Solar evolution. Most of it may be consumed before hydrogen fusion even starts. But,since Sun sized stars do not mix the ingredients much, much of the deuterium may survive in outer layers of the Sun, waiting for the core to expand as the Sun starts burning helium, etc. I've never seen estimates of how much deuterium from a low mass stellar nebula survives to be released in the stellar wind/ planetary nebula.

In any case, the problem of detecting Solar neutrons as a indicator of Coronal fusion is difficult. If one watt of fusion energy is released in the Corona, the neutron flux may be ~ 10^12 neutrons/s. near the surface of the sun. That flux is spread out over a surface area of perhaps ~ 60 million KM^2. That would be a flux of ~ 10^12 / (60*10^12 M^2)or ~0.02 neutrons/ M^2. That is near the surface of the Sun. At Earths distance, that flux would be ~ 10,000 times less or ~ 0.000002 neutrons/s per M^2. Most neutron detectors are much smaller, which would reduce this number further. Next consider the detection efficiency of neutron counters, generally much less than one. Then there is the issue of Earth's atmosphere. How many of the neutrons would survive before the being thermalized and absorbed by the atmospheric atoms.

You could work the problem from the reverse direction. Figure the distance, detector efficiency and detection area. If counts above the noise level could be detected, you could estimate the Coronal neutron output. Use a detector in low Earth orbit if necessary, etc.

One major problem with this approach is that neutrons not contained in a nucleus have a limited half life and this is probably much less than the time it takes the neutron to travel from the Sun to the Earth. A 10 MeV neutron might be traveling at ~ less than 10,000 Kilometers/sec. It would take a while to reach the Earth, or even Mercury- if you placed a satellite with a detector there.

If there is enough Coronal fusion with neutron production, you would probably need to detect neutron enriched isotopes on the surface of the Moon to support the idea. Detecting the neutrons directly seems impossible, even if the neutron producing fusion in the Corona is many orders of magnitude greater than the reasonable estimates by ChrisMB.

Dan Tibbets.
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Re: Is it fusion in the solar corona?

Post by Dan Tibbets »

Oops, I missed on my estimate of the Solar surface area perhaps ~1-2 million KM out from the photosphere. Instead of ~ 60 million square KM, it would be closer to ~ 20 trillion square KM. This would make the neutron flux per square Meter ~ 1 million times less than my earlier estimate. This compounds the difficulty of the detection issue by that proportion.

Dan Tibbets
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Re: Is it fusion in the solar corona?

Post by Enos »

Chris, thanks for the clarification on the proton content of the solar corona. Do we know that the corona is generally neutral or is it something we assume? Anyway I guess the number is close to the truth.

We know that deuterium is synthesized in coronal flares so there is some deuterium in the corona, but we don't know how much. I can't find any measurements of deuterium in the solar wind either. This abstract sums this up http://arxiv.org/abs/0909.1279

So during solar maximum we have more flares and more deuterium in the corona, and we have more thermal radiation from the sun causing higher temperatures at Earth, one of many possible explanations could be increased fusion in the corona.

In vacuum, energy can only be transferred by radiation or by accelerating high energy particles out of there. Some of the energy may go down to heat the photosphere, where it can be radiated away.
Some may be transferred away by the solar wind. Some charged energy particles may drive/push magnetic fields and thereby creating electric fields and currents. We may also get relativistic velocity particle swarms similar to the Earths Van Allen belts.
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Re: Is it fusion in the solar corona?

Post by Steven Sesselmann »

Enos,

[Do we know that the corona is generally neutral or is it something we assume? ]

Your question caught my eye..

What is the definition of neutral?

Here on earth the voltage potential rises up by about 100V per meter above ground level, which means there is a potential difference of 100 KV at around 1 km height. Why would this not be the case on the Sun?

Considering the rarefied atmosphere of the Sun's corona region, and the enormous Voltage potentials I see no reason why particles would not be accelerated to fusion velocities.

As yourself the question, what happens to a sphere insulated in space when protons attempt to escape, and can they escape?

Steven
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https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven_Sesselmann - Various papers and patents on RG
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: Is it fusion in the solar corona?

Post by Dennis P Brown »

The overall charge of the solar corona is and must be neutral since it is a plasma that has been ejected from a solar surface that is neutral. The Earth's atmosphere is an insulator so it can support a charge density with altitude (until very high up near/in space where it does become a plasma and supports charge flow. In which case it would be neutral.)

Any charge imbalance in the solar corona would be quickly neutralized by local particles. I would think that very small, localized regions could exhibit non-neutral states for very short periods between ions. But I would think that this would offer little help with your fusion concept.

The solar wind is neutral from what I understand - besides, think if it wasn't. The charge buildup on the sun would be huge in a short time and powerful charge flows towards the sun would occur and I am not aware of anyone seeing such effects.

Chris has thoroughly and completely answered the question of fusion ever occurring in any significant amount in the corona (it doesn't) - mass ejections would have only a small increased density (relative) compared to the corona so again, fusion rates would be very tiny and not significant.

Earth’s upper atmospheric heating has been shown to be solely due to increased UV intensity due to sun spots during high solar activity and has nothing to do with corona heating from what I am aware on this subject.

Unless you can offer technical information and physics that somehow gets around Chris’ proven physics, your idea just is not possible – sorry.

Also, it is not clear to me from reading the abstract that they are implying that hydrogen fusion is the cause of the deuterium that is seen in the corona. The sun contains deuterium and some would always be ejected during a solar event (mass ejection.) Be careful jumping to any conclusions before reading the paper – always a good idea.
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Did you miss my main point?

Post by Enos »

Hello again thanks for all the answers!

I might have been totally clear, because it seems like you missed the main point. I suggested that fusion occur because particles are accelerated from the corona towards the Sun. That's why I proposed the plasma jets going towards the Sun and that fusor mechanism. And if ions are accelerated towards the sun, sooner or later they will crash, like cosmic rays hitting Earth causing nuclear reactions, but they will not take linear paths due to gyration in the magnetic fields and the distances involved.

I suspect most particle collisions occur in the transition region between the corona and the chromosphere. The transmission region has a strong temperature increase proportional to a strong pressure decrease. See attached picture.

Most particles are probably not leaving the corona upwards, but go downwards(towards the sun) to the chromosphere:

“The Sun's corona, or extended outer layer, is a region of plasma that is heated to over a million degrees Celsius. As a result of thermal collisions, the particles within the inner corona have a range and distribution of speeds described by a Maxwellian distribution. The mean velocity of these particles is about 145 km/s, which is well below the solar escape velocity of 618 km/s. However, a few of the particles achieve energies sufficient to reach the terminal velocity of 400 km/s, which allows them to feed the solar wind.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind#Emission

So it seems like we have a gyrating particle swarm in the inner corona close to the transistion region. The ions could then orbit the Sun numerous times while partly gyrate into the chromosphere. It is also hard to measure the proton content close to the sun, as protons have no emission lines, and to use photometry and background starlight(as explained by Chris) may be difficult due to the blinding sunlight.

Many solutions to the coronal heating problem are proposed, but there is not any consensus in the scientific community, because the proposed solutions can’t explain all the observations. The two most accepted proposed solutions are wave heating and heating by magnetic reconnection and nanoflares.

"According to Parker a nanoflare arises from an event of magnetic reconnection which converts the energy stored in the solar magnetic field into the motion of the plasma. The plasma motion (thought as fluid motion) occurs at length-scales so small that it is soon dumped by the turbulence and then by the viscosity. In such a way the energy is quickly converted into heat, and conducted by the free electrons along the magnetic field lines closer to the place where the nanoflare switches on. In order to heat a region of very high X-ray emission, over an area 1" x 1", a nanoflare of 10^17 J should happen every 20 seconds...

The theory initially developed by Parker of micro-nanoflares is one of those explaining the heating of the corona as the dissipation of electric currents generated by a spontaneous relaxation of the magnetic field towards a configuration of lower energy. The magnetic energy is transformed into electric one and then into heat for Joule effect." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoflares

So here we have strong electric current bursts, perfect for plasma pinch fusion. Magnetic reconnection itself could also be described as a pinch which compress and accelerate particles, and the compression and acceleration is confirmed in Earths plasma jet accelerating particles creating auroras on Earth.

Other proposed solutions to the coronal heating problem are the observed and the estimated amount of 11000 magnetic tornadoes in the chromosphere, another one is spicules which is hot dense gas bursts going through the chromosphere and out in the corona.

I also proposed two possible solutions, plasma jets going towards the sun generated by coronal streamers/magnetic reconnection, and a fusor mechanism created by ionization and an electric field.

But as you have picked up upon, the majority of scientists don’t believe in charge separations in plasma, so then we can’t either have electric fields. This was based upon the assumption that plasma is a perfect conductor, electrons can then flow freely without energy loss and neutralize the charge separation. But as we now know plasma has a small resistance and is no perfect conductor, so the assumption is proven wrong. We also know from observations of our magnetosphere that charge separation is possible and electric fields are measured, in double layers and plasma connected to the aurora. Magnetic fields and specially changing magnetic fields are great charge separators, and the electron is extremely magnetic. We also have accepted MHD mechanisms or MHD generators which create currents from high velocity plasma in a magnetic field. As high velocity plasma pass through the Suns magnetic field we will get a MHD generator effect creating currents. The solar atmosphere also have a lot of changing magnetic fields, in standard physics this create induction of currents.

So if we add currents and charge separation, we could increase the chance of collisions. Because equal directed currents attracts, this may concentrate ions and create a plasma pinch, which we experimentally have used to create fusion reactions.

I may not have all the answers on exactly how fusion in the corona is possible, but it seems like its numerous ways it may be possible. And if the corona and the transition region are burning with fusion, I expected we could observe it, but so far I have found no final concluding observations which dismisses or confirms the hypothesis. But there are several interesting observations I will discuss with you.

Within 3-5 years we will probably know the final solution to this hypothesis as there are several inner heliospheric missions planned. I hope they remember to bring a neutron monitor.
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