Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...210.9101w&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society Meeting 210, #91.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.204
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) --- phenomena which impact our society, but are scientifically interesting in themselves --- are driven by free magnetic energy in the coronal magnetic field. Since the coronal magnetic field cannot be directly measured, modelers often extrapolate the coronal field from the photospheric magnetograms --- the only field measurements routinely available. The best extrapolation techniques assume that the field is force free (coronal currents parallel the magnetic field), but that currents are not simply a linear function of the magnetic field. Recent tests, however, suggest that such non-linear force-free field (NLFFF) extrapolation techniques often underestimate free magnetic energy. We hypothesize that, since relaxation-based NLFFF techniques tend to smooth field discontinuities, such approaches will fail when current sheets are present. Here, we test this hypothesis by applying the Optimization NLFFF method to two configurations from an MHD simulation --- one with strong current concentrations, and one with weak concentrations. This work is supported by a NASA Sun-Earth Connections Theory grant to UC-Berkeley.
de Moortel Ineke
McTiernan James M.
Welsch Brian
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