EVIDENCE FOR STEADY HEATING: OBSERVATIONS OF AN ACTIVE REGION CORE WITH HINODE AND TRACE

The timescale for energy release is an important parameter for constraining the coronal heating mechanism. Observations of warm coronal loops (similar to 1 MK) have indicated that the heating is impulsive and that coronal plasma is far from equilibrium. In contrast, observations at higher temperatures (similar to 3 MK) have generally been consistent with steady heating models. Previous observations, however, have not been able to exclude the possibility that the high temperature loops are actually composed of many small-scale threads that are in various stages of heating and cooling and only appear to be in equilibrium. With new observations from the EUV Imaging Spectrometer and X-ray Telescope (XRT) on Hinode we have the ability to investigate the properties of high temperature coronal plasma in extraordinary detail. We examine the emission in the core of an active region and find three independent lines of evidence for steady heating. We find that the emission observed in XRT is generally steady for hours, with a fluctuation level of approximately 15% in an individual pixel. Short-lived impulsive heating events are observed, but they appear to be unrelated to the steady emission that dominates the active region. Furthermore, we find no evidence for warm emission that is spatially correlated with the hot emission, as would be expected if the high temperature loops are the result of impulsive heating. Finally, we also find that intensities in the moss, the footpoints of high temperature loops, are consistent with steady heating models provided that we account for the local expansion of the loop from the base of the transition region to the corona. In combination, these results provide strong evidence that the heating in the core of an active region is effectively steady, that is, the time between heating events is short relative to the relevant radiative and conductive cooling times.