How does flux braiding heat the corona?

The idea behind flux braiding is that the convective motions move the magnetic field around and that occasionally this leads to situations where different field lines are forced close together and strong currents are generated. At these locations the situations gets favorable for magnetic reconnection. This process cut magnetic field lines in a way that they become more straight again. Straight field lines contain less energy then bended field lines and the difference in energy can be used to heat the corona.

The above may have been a bit technical. Try to look a the picture below. Here the idea and effect of flux braiding is schematically shown.

flux braiding

Return to the DC heating section.