Observational signatures of nanoflare heated solar stellar coronae

Using time-dependent dynamical models of the radiating gas in coronal flux tubes; we identify features in UV spectral line profiles that can reveal the direction in which energy hows through the solar transition region, in observations without temporal or spatial resolution. The profile features survive spatial and tem poral averaging through non-linear dependencies of the Line emission coefficients on thermal properties of the plasma that are correlated with the material velocity. This approach requires only low noise data of high spectral resolution and could naturally be applied to stars as well as the solar corona; We make predictions for the SUMER instrument that can in principle test whether energy propagates upwards or downwards in coronal flux tubes, suggesting a new angle of attack on the long standing problem of determining coronal heating mechanisms. (C) 1997 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.