MHD turbulence and statistics of energy release in the solar corona

We present a statistical analysis of long-time simulations of a two-dimensional section of a coronal loop subject to random magnetic forcing within the framework of reduced magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). Even with a moderate magnetic Reynolds number, intermittency is clearly present both in space and time. The response of the loop to random forcing, as described either by the time series of the average and maximum energy dissipation or its spatial distribution at a given time, displays a gaussian noise component which may be subtracted to define discrete dissipative events. Distribution functions of both maximum and average current dissipation, of total energy content, of peak activity and of duration of such events are all shown to display robust scaling laws.