Theory of coronal streamer formation.
Abstract
Conceptually, coronal streamers can form (and disappear) by either of two distinct processes: plasma "filling" and outward distention of a pre-existing closed magnetic structure; and magnetic reconnection, for whatever reason, of an open bipolar field configuration. The author argues that the majority of stable-appearing streamers on the Sun at any time are in fact of the latter category - namely, open-field structures undergoing gradual reconnection. Quasi-steady (i.e., "convectively relaxed") reconnection models may be required to explain the narrow high-density cores exhibited by most streamers out to distances of many solar radii. The author discusses some of the observational signatures of reconnection within streamers, which the instrumentation aboard SOHO may be capable of detecting.
- Publication:
-
Coronal Streamers, Coronal Loops, and Coronal and Solar Wind Composition
- Pub Date:
- November 1992
- Bibcode:
- 1992ESASP.348...53K
- Keywords:
-
- Magnetic Field Reconnection;
- Solar Corona;
- Solar Corpuscular Radiation;
- Solar Magnetic Field;
- Space Plasmas;
- Current Sheets;
- Neutral Currents;
- Photosphere;
- Soho Mission;
- Solar Physics;
- Solar Physics