The Creation of Twist by Reconnection of Flux Tubes
Abstract
A fundamental process in a plasma is the magnetic reconnection of one pair of flux tubes (such as solar coronal loops) to produce a new pair. During this process magnetic helicity is conserved, but mutual helicity can be transformed to self-helicity, so that the new tubes acquire twist. However, until recently, when Wright (Astrophys. J.878, 102, 2019) supplied a solution, the partition of self-helicity between the two tubes was an outstanding puzzle. Here we examine Wright's result in detail and apply it to a variety of cases. The simplest case, which Wright himself used to illustrate the result, is that of thin ribbons or flux sheets. We first explicitly apply his method to the usually expected standard case (when the tubes approach one another without twisting before reconnection) and confirm his result is valid for flux sheaths and tubes as well as sheets.
- Publication:
-
Solar Physics
- Pub Date:
- March 2020
- DOI:
- 10.1007/s11207-020-01608-0
- Bibcode:
- 2020SoPh..295...48P
- Keywords:
-
- Sun: solar flares;
- Coronal mass ejections;
- Erupting prominences;
- Sun: magnetic topology;
- Magnetic reconnection;
- Helicity