Implications for Coronal Heating from Coronal Rain

Coronal rain is a phenomenon above active regions in which cool plasma condensations fall down from coronal heights. Numerical simulations of loops have shown that such condensations can naturally form in the case of footpoint concentrated heating through the "catastrophic cooling" mechanism. In this work we analize high resolution limb observations in Ca II H and H alpha of coronal rain performed by Hinode/SOT and by Crisp of SST and derive statistical properties. We further investigate the link between coronal rain and the coronal heating mechanisms by performing 1.5-D MHD simulations of a loop subject to footpoint heating and to Alfven waves generated in the photosphere. It is found that if a loop is heated predominantly from Alfven waves coronal rain is inhibited due to the characteristic uniform heating they produce. Hence coronal rain can point both to the spatial distribution of the heating and to the agent of the heating itself, thus acting as a marker for coronal heating mechanisms.