TEMPORAL BEHAVIOR OF PRESSURE IN SOLAR CORONAL LOOPS

The temporal evolution of pressure in solar coronal loops is studied u sing the ideal theory of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in cylindrical geometry. The velocity and the magnetic fields are expanded in terms of the Chandrasekhar-Kendall (C-K) functions. The three-mode represent ation of the velocity and the magnetic fields submits to the investiga tion of chaos. When the initial values of the velocity and the magneti c field coefficients are very nearly equal, the system shows periodici ties. For randomly chosen initial values of these parameters, the evol ution of the velocity and the magnetic fields is nonlinear and chaotic . The consequent plasma pressure is determined in the linear and nonli near regimes. The evidence for the existence of chaos is established b y evaluating the invariant correlation dimension of the attractor D-2, a fractal value of which indicates the existence of deterministic cha os.