Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufmsh33b0405t&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #SH33B-0405
Physics
7513 Coronal Mass Ejections (2101), 7519 Flares, 7524 Magnetic Fields, 7526 Magnetic Reconnection (2723, 7835), 7833 Mathematical And Numerical Techniques (0500, 3200)
Scientific paper
The study of magnetic connectivity in the solar corona reveals a need to generalize the field line mapping technique to arbitrary geometry of the boundaries and systems of coordinates. Indeed, the global description of the connectivity in the corona requires the use of the photospheric and solar wind boundaries. Both are closed surfaces and therefore do not admit a global regular system of coordinates. At least two overlapping regular systems of coordinates (charts) for each of the boundary are necessary in this case to avoid a spherical-pole-like singularity in the coordinates of the footpoints. This implies that the basic characteristic of magnetic connectivity -- squashing degree or factor Q of elemental flux tubes (Titov et al. 2002) -- must be rewritten in covariant form. Such a covariant expression of Q is derived in this work. The derived expression is very flexible and highly efficient for describing the global magnetic connectivity in the solar corona. In addition, a general expression for a new characteristic Q_\perp which defines a squashing of the flux tubes in the directions perpendicular to the field lines is determined. This new quantity makes it possible, first, to filter out the quasi-separatrix layers whose large values of Q are caused by a projection effect at the field lines nearly touching the photosphere. And, secondly, it allows us to identify those flux tubes whose squashing in a perpendicular direction is overridden by the projection effect. Thus, the value Q_\perp provides a much more precise description of the volumetric properties of the magnetic field structure. The difference between Q and Q_\perp is illustrated by comparing their distributions for the Titov-Demoulin (1999) model of a twisted magnetic configuration. This research is supported by NASA and the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling (an NSF Science and Technology Center).
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