Related papers: Magnetic Braiding and Parallel Electric Fields
The response of the solar coronal magnetic field to small-scale photospheric boundary motions including the possible formation of current sheets via the Parker scenario is one of open questions of solar physics. Here we address the problem…
One proposed resolution to the long-standing problem of solar coronal heating involves the buildup of magnetic energy in the corona due to turbulent motions at the photosphere that braid the coronal field, and the subsequent release of this…
Aims: Our aim is to investigate the resistive relaxation of a magnetic loop that contains braided magnetic flux but no net current or helicity. The loop is subject to line-tied boundary conditions. We investigate the dynamical processes…
We examine the dynamics of magnetic flux tubes containing non-trivial field line braiding (or linkage), using mathematical and computational modelling, in the context of testable predictions for the laboratory and their significance for…
The theoretical concept that braided magnetic field lines in the solar corona may dissipate a sufficient amount of energy to account for the brightening observed in the active-region corona, has been substantiated by high-resolution…
The squashing factor Q (Titov et al. 2002), a property of the magnetic field line mapping, has been suggested as an indicator for the formation of current sheets, and subsequently magnetic reconnection, in astrophysical plasmas. Here we…
Relaxation of braided coronal magnetic fields through reconnection is thought to be a source of energy to heat plasma in active region coronal loops. However, observations of active region coronal heating associated with an untangling of…
Parker has hypothesised that, in a perfectly ideal environment, complex photospheric motions acting on a continuous magnetic field will result in the formation of tangential discontinuities corresponding to singular currents. We review…
In this paper we seek to understand the timescale on which the photospheric motions on the Sun braid coronal magnetic field lines. This is a crucial ingredient for determining the viability of the braiding mechanism for explaining the high…
Magnetic reconnection, the rearrangement of magnetic field topology, is a fundamental physical process in magnetized plasma systems all over the universe1,2. Its process is difficult to be directly observed. Coronal structures, such as…
Three-dimensional magnetic reconnection is a fundamental plasma process crucial for heating the solar corona and generating the solar wind, but resolving and characterizing it on the Sun remains challenging. Using high-quality data from the…
The outer atmosphere of the Sun is composed of plasma heated to temperatures well in excess of the visible surface. We investigate short cool and warm (<1 MK) loops seen in the core of an active region to address the role of field-line…
Magnetic reconnection is one of the fundamental dynamical processes in the solar corona. The method of studying reconnection in active region-scale magnetic fields generally depends on non-local methods (i.e. requiring information across…
Magnetic reconnection, a fundamentally important process in many aspects of astrophysics, is believed to be initiated by the tearing instability of an electric current sheet, a region where magnetic field abruptly changes direction and…
Magnetic reconnection is commonly considered as a mechanism of solar (eruptive) flares. A deeper study of this scenario reveals, however, a number of open issues. Among them is the fundamental question, how the magnetic energy is…
Global magnetic field extrapolations are now revealing the huge complexity of the Sun's corona, and in particular the structure of the boundary between open and closed magnetic flux. Moreover, recent developments indicate that magnetic…
The structure and dynamics of the solar corona is dominated by the magnetic field. In most areas in the corona magnetic forces are so dominant that all non-magnetic forces like plasma pressure gradient and gravity can be neglected in the…
The magnetic field in many astrophysical plasmas -- such as the Solar corona and Earth's magnetosphere -- has been shown to have a highly complex, three-dimensional structure. Recent advances in theory and computational simulations have…
Context. For the last thirty years, most of the studies on the relaxation of stressed magnetic fields in the solar environment have onlyconsidered the Lorentz force, neglecting plasma contributions, and therefore, limiting every equilibrium…
We investigate the relaxation of braided magnetic loops in order to find out how the type of braiding via footpoint motions affects resultant heating of the loop. Two magnetic loops, braided in different ways, are used as initial conditions…