Photospheric Kelvin–Helmholtz Vortices as Possible Drivers of Coronal Heating: Implications of the DKIST Observations

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) has resolved Kelvin–Helmholtz (KH) vortices at photospheric magnetic-flux boundaries with a characteristic wavelength of 65 km. I estimate whether these vortices can supply the photospheric driver for cross-scale plasma heating through reconnection across different heights from photosphere to low corona. Using the simulated MURaM shear, density contrast, and 500 km vertical extent, together with a representative photospheric density, gives a shear-energy density of 1.35 × 10 2 J m −3 and 2.2 × 10 24 erg per characteristic vortex. Magnetic fields 1°–7° from exact perpendicular orientation ( B ⊥ k ) remain KH unstable in an idealized calculation and provide an in-plane component that can be wound or compressed into current layers. The limiting case, in which the center-of-momentum shear reservoir becomes new magnetic free energy, gives b cs = 184 G, identical to the ideal marginal-stability field and equivalent to a 7 . ° 6 effective twist. This stores at most 135 J m −3 in the layers. Strain-driven exponential thinning at the measured shear rates reduces the layer width from the macroscopic driving scale to the ideal-tearing width within a single vortex lifetime. Using empirical collisionless reconnection heating fractions of 0.28–0.44, the same twist mapped to weakly collisional heights gives ion heating from ≈20 eV at the photosphere to ≈1.4 keV in the low corona. For an illustrative, snapshot-based KH–active surface fraction of 0.03, quiet-Sun and coronal-hole losses require 5%–8% and 14%–21%, respectively, of the shear reservoir to become reconnecting magnetic free energy that reaches such heights.