English

A Nonlinear Force-Free Magnetic Field Approximation Suitable for Fast Forward-Fitting to Coronal Loops. II. Numeric Code and Tests

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2015-06-05 v1

Abstract

Based on a second-order approximation of nonlinear force-free magnetic field solutions in terms of uniformly twisted field lines derived in Paper I, we develop here a numeric code that is capable to forward-fit such analytical solutions to arbitrary magnetogram (or vector magnetograph) data combined with (stereoscopically triangulated) coronal loop 3D coordinates. We test the code here by forward-fitting to six potential field and six nonpotential field cases simulated with our analytical model, as well as by forward-fitting to an exactly force-free solution of the Low and Lou (1990) model. The forward-fitting tests demonstrate: (i) a satisfactory convergence behavior (with typical misalignment angles of μ110\mu \approx 1^\circ-10^\circ), (ii) relatively fast computation times (from seconds to a few minutes), and (iii) the high fidelity of retrieved force-free α\alpha-parameters (αfit/αmodel0.91.0\alpha_{\rm fit}/\alpha_{\rm model} \approx 0.9-1.0 for simulations and αfit/αmodel0.7±0.3\alpha_{\rm fit}/\alpha_{\rm model} \approx 0.7\pm0.3 for the Low and Lou model). The salient feature of this numeric code is the relatively fast computation of a quasi-forcefree magnetic field, which closely matches the geometry of coronal loops in active regions, and complements the existing {\sl nonlinear force-free field (NLFFF)} codes based on photospheric magnetograms without coronal constraints.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1207.2783,
  title  = {A Nonlinear Force-Free Magnetic Field Approximation Suitable for Fast Forward-Fitting to Coronal Loops. II. Numeric Code and Tests},
  author = {Markus J. Aschwanden and Anna Malanushenko},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1207.2783},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

Solar PHysics, (in press), 25 pages, 11 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T21:34:14.783Z