Authors: Benjamin Chandran

Observations from Parker Solar Probe and other spacecraft suggest that the solar wind is powered to a large extent by an Alfven-wave energy flux that is generated by photospheric motions and/or magnetic reconnection. The solar wind and solar corona are also affected by the flux of heat, including conductive losses into the radiative lower solar atmosphere. In this presentation, I will describe an approximate analytic solution to the coupled problems of coronal heating and solar-wind acceleration that accounts for this Alfven-wave energy flux and heat flux. This solution includes analytic formulas and intuitive explanations for the solar mass-loss rate, the solar-wind speed far from the Sun, the coronal temperature, the heat flux from the corona into the lower solar atmosphere, and the plasma density at the base of the corona. Analytic treatments such as this one are useful because they can deepen our understanding by distilling complex processes into their most essential elements, show how different quantities scale with one another, and encapsulate our understanding into a portable form that can be applied to other systems and used by anyone.