Programme by Session

The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is one that appears in many magnetized astrophysical and space systems including the solar atmosphere and the flanks of the magnetosphere. The instability in its nonlinear regime drives turbulence, and from that mixing and heating. Here we present mean-field solutions to the nonlinear MHD Kelvin-Helmholtz mixing problem, confirming their validity through 3D MHD simulations. We use these solutions to provide heating rates for Kelvin-Helmholtz instability heating of prominence threads, highlighting that as long as the shear velocities driving the instability are smaller than the coronal sound speed, then mixing effects dominate this interaction.