Formation of electric-current sheets in the magnetostatic atmosphere
Abstract
An analytical illustration is presented of the theorem by Parker (1989, 1990), which states that a magnetic field with an arbitrarily prescribed topology in an electrically perfectly conducting medium tends toward equilibrium states with either embedded electric current sheets or magnetic tangential discontinuities. The illustration concerns an isothermal atmosphere in which the Lorentz force does not vanish, but rather balances pressure and gravitational forces in static equilibrium. It is shown that the quasi-static evolution of the atmosphere in response to a continuously changing plasma pressure distribution at the atmospheric base can bring an initially smooth state to one in which an electric current sheet forms.
- Publication:
-
Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Pub Date:
- January 1992
- Bibcode:
- 1992A&A...253..311L
- Keywords:
-
- Current Sheets;
- Magnetohydrodynamics;
- Magnetostatics;
- Solar Atmosphere;
- Solar Magnetic Field;
- Solar Wind;
- Analytic Functions;
- Electric Conductors;
- Electric Current;
- Gravitational Fields;
- Lorentz Force;
- Plasma Conductivity;
- Plasma Physics