Slip-Back Mapping as a Tracker of Topological Changes in Evolving Magnetic Configurations
Abstract
The topology of the coronal magnetic field produces a strong impact on the properties of the solar corona and presumably on the origin of the slow solar wind. To advance our understanding of this impact, we revisit the concept of the so-called slip-back mapping (Titov et al. 2009) and adapt it for determining open, closed, and disconnected flux systems that are formed in the solar corona by magnetic reconnection during a given time interval. The method we have developed on this basis allows us, in particular, to describe the magnetic flux transfer between these systems via so-called interchange reconnection with unprecedented level of details. The present implementation of the method relies on the tracking of magnetic field lines through their moving footpoints at both lower and upper spherical boundaries, which is not always possible if there is a radial flow at the polarity inversion line. Nevertheless, even with this restricted implementation, the proposed method enables us to analyze a global MHD evolution of the solar corona that is driven by idealized differential rotation of the photospheric plasma (Lionello et al. 2005). To overcome the indicated restriction, we propose an extension of the method that will allow investigating magnetic field evolutions driven by more general boundary conditions. We anticipate that the generalized method will be particularly useful for the analysis of global MHD models combined with solar wind measurements from the Solar Probe Plus and Solar Orbiter missions.
Research supported by NASA’s HSR, LWS, and HGI programs, NSF grant AGS-1560411, and AFOSR contract FA9550-15-C-0001.- Publication:
-
Solar Heliospheric and INterplanetary Environment (SHINE 2019)
- Pub Date:
- May 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019shin.confE.116T