The corona is a tenuous plasma sorrounding the Sun. It is two hundred times hotter than the chromosphere, which is the region right underneath. This abrupt temperature rise must be associated to a very efficient thermal energy source located in the corona. Simple estimates show that the work done by the photospheric velocity field on the coronal magnetic field is sufficient to balance radiative and conductive losses. However, the question of how this energy is dissipated is still an open area of research.

Under the assumption of a state of fully developed turbulence, we work on models according to which energy is transferred to the microscales by direct cascades, and then efficiently dissipated.

We also perform direct numerical simulations of the reduced MHD equations, to simulate the dynamics of coronal loops. We study various relevant regimes such as: (a) transient reconnection events, presumably associated to microflares, (b) application of stationary footpoint motions, which generate MHD turbulence in the coronal part of the loop, (c) enhanced reconnection rates in the presence of a turbulent background.