Solar coronal heating by magnetic cancellation: I. Connected equal bipoles

We present two-dimensional numerical magnetohydrodynamic simulations of a cancelling magnetic feature and the associated coronal X-ray bright point. Coronal reconnection is found to produce significant Ohmic heating, and at the same time about 90 per cent of the magnetic flux is cancelled. The presence of downflows accelerates the process of flux cancellation in the early phase. The last 10 per cent of the cancellation takes place by reconnection at the base. Reconnection occurs in a time-dependent way in response to the footpoint motions, and the resulting sequence of magnetic configurations is close to potential.