Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
May 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agusm..sh51b05w&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2001, abstract #SH51B-05
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
7500 Solar Physics, Astrophysics, And Astronomy, 7524 Magnetic Fields, 7531 Prominence Eruptions
Scientific paper
The total free energy of coronal magnetic-field configurations is significant for studies of solar eruptions such as flares and CMEs. It was conjectured by Aly that the energy of a closed magnetic-field configuration above the photosphere cannot exceed the energy of the corresponding open-field configuration with the same normal field distribution at the photosphere. This conjecture was later analyzed by Aly for a planar geometry and by Sturrock for a curved geometry. However, these analyses both involved the assumption that all field lines thread the photosphere. Since one can conceive of a pre-eruption configuration involving magnetic flux that does not thread the photosphere, it is interesting to determine whether this variation can lead to models for which the magnetic energy exceeds the Aly limit. We have therefore examined a force-free field model comprising a toroidal twisted flux-tube, above the solar equator, held in place by an overlying dipolar field. We consider only magnetic stresses, and analyze the configuration by the generating-function (Grad-Shafranov) method. We solve the equations numerically by an iterative procedure, relaxing the flux-tube field and the dipole field in turn. We find that it is indeed possible for the energy of a closed magnetic-field configuration to exceed the Aly limit. This work was supported in part by NASA grant NSS 8-37334.
Sturrock Peter Andrew
Weber Mark A.
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