Magnetic buoyancy and the escape of magnetic fields from stars

Details Magnetic buoyancy and the escape of magnetic fields from stars Magnetic buoyancy and the escape of magnetic fields from stars

Jun 1984

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1984apj...281..839p&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal, Part 1 (ISSN 0004-637X), vol. 281, June 15, 1984, p. 839-845.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

66

Magnetohydrodynamic Waves, Stellar Magnetic Fields, Sunspots, Coriolis Effect, Dynamo Theory, Eddy Viscosity, Reynolds Number

Scientific paper

Magnetic buoyancy causes the azimuthal magnetic fields of stars to rise rapidly to the surface, from where they are generally assumed to escape freely into space. However, a closer look at the problem reveals the simple fact that disengagement of the field from the gas, and escape into space, require a convoluted field configuration, producing neutral point reconnection of the flux in the tenuous gas above the surface of the star. Only that flux which reconnects can escape.
Recent observations of the magnetic fields emerging through the surface of the Sun show that even at sunspot maximum the gaps in longitude between bipolar magnetic regions are so wide as to limit severely the reconnection between regions. We suggest from the observations that no more than perhaps 3% of the flux that is observed to emerge through the surface is able to reconnect and escape. Hence the surface of the Sun approximates to an impenetrable barrier rather than an open surface, with quantitative consequences for theoretical dynamo models.
Recent observations of the retraction of bipolar fields at the end of their appearance at the surface suggest active dynamical control by the convection beneath the surface.

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