Differential Rotation of the Solar Corona from Magnetic Field Data

A method for investigating the differential rotation of the solar corona using the coronal magnetic field as a tracer is proposed. The magnetic field is calculated in the potential approximation from observational data at the photospheric level. The time interval from June 24, 1976, to December 31, 2004, is considered. The magnetic field has been calculated for all latitudes from the equator to ±75? with a 5? step at distances from the base of the corona 1.0 R_⊙ to 2.45 R_⊙ near the source surface. The coronal rotation periods at 14 distances from the solar center have been determined by the method of periodogram analysis. The coronal rotation is shown to become progressively less differential with increasing heliocentric distance; it does not become rigid even near the source surface. The change in the coronal rotation periods with time is considered. At the cycleminimumthe rotation has been found to bemost differential, especially at small distances from the solar center. The change in coronal rotation with time is consistent with the tilt of the solar magnetic equator. The results from the magnetic field are compared with those obtained from the brightness of the green coronal Fe XIV 530.3 nm line. The consistency between these results confirms the reliability of the proposed method for studying the coronal rotation. Studying the rotation of the coronal magnetic field gives hope for the possibility of using this method to diagnose the differential rotation in subphotospheric layers.     

太阳磁场的观测

分析了太阳的观测磁图所涉及的磁场位形 ,以及磁场观测研究中的一些问题。     

Multiparameter Computations of Solar Wind Characteristics in the Near-Earth Space from the Data on the Solar Magnetic Field

The solar wind parameters were analyzed using the concept which is being developed by the authors and assumes the existence of several systems of magnetic fields of different scales on the Sun. It was demonstrated that the simplest model with one source surface and a radial expansion does not describe the characteristics of the quiet solar wind adequately. Different magnetic field subsystems on the Sun affect the characteristics of the solar wind plasma in a different way, even changing the sign of correlation. New multiparameter schemes were developed to compute the velocity and the magnetic field components of the solar wind. The radial component of the magnetic field in the solar corona and the tilt of the heliospheric current sheet, which determines the degree of divergence of field lines in the heliosphere, were taken into account when calculating the magnetic field in the solar wind. Both the divergence of field lines in the corona and the strength of the solar magnetic field are allowed for in calculating the solar wind speed. The suggested schemes provide a considerably higher computation accuracy than that given by commonly used one-parameter models.     

Contribution to the Solar Mean Magnetic Field from Different Solar Regions

Seven-year-long seeing-free observations of solar magnetic fields with the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) were used to study the sources of the solar mean magnetic field, SMMF, defined as the net line-of-sight magnetic flux divided over the solar disk area. To evaluate the contribution of different regions to the SMMF, we separated all the pixels of each SDO/HMI magnetogram into three subsets: weak (\(B^{\mathrm{W}}\)), intermediate (\(B^{\mathrm{I}}\)), and strong (\(B^{\mathrm{S}}\)) fields. The \(B^{\mathrm{W}}\) component represents areas with magnetic flux densities below the chosen threshold; the \(B^{\mathrm{I}}\) component is mainly represented by network fields, remains of decayed active regions (ARs), and ephemeral regions. The \(B^{\mathrm{S}}\) component consists of magnetic elements in ARs. To derive the contribution of a subset to the total SMMF, the linear regression coefficients between the corresponding component and the SMMF were calculated. We found that i) when the threshold level of 30 Mx?cm^?2 is applied, the \(B^{\mathrm{I}}\) and \(B^{\mathrm{S}}\) components together contribute from 65% to 95% of the SMMF, while the fraction of the occupied area varies in a range of 2?–?6% of the disk area; ii) as the threshold magnitude is lowered to 6 Mx?cm^?2, the contribution from \(B^{\mathrm{I}}+B^{\mathrm{S}}\) grows to 98%, and the fraction of the occupied area reaches a value of about 40% of the solar disk. In summary, we found that regardless of the threshold level, only a small part of the solar disk area contributes to the SMMF. This means that the photospheric magnetic structure is an intermittent inherently porous medium, resembling a percolation cluster. These findings suggest that the long-standing concept that continuous vast unipolar areas on the solar surface are the source of the SMMF may need to be reconsidered.     

日冕磁场重建方法在研究太阳爆发活动中的应用

太阳是与地球关系最为密切的天体.发生在日面上的剧烈爆发性活动可能对人类的生存环境产生巨大影响甚至是灾难性后果.包含太阳耀斑、暗条爆发和日冕物质抛射在内的太阳爆发活动是同一物理过程的不同表现形式,其能量来源于爆发前储存在日冕中的磁场自由能.因此,了解日冕磁场的3维结构是理解太阳爆发的触发机制以及活动区的稳定性等现象的前提.由于观测技术限制,目前尚无法对日冕磁场进行常规观测,因此发展了多种利用可常规观测的光球磁场来重建日冕磁场的方法.主要评述近10 yr来各种日冕磁场重建方法在研究太阳爆发活动中的应用.     

Studying Solar Eruptions from Reconstructed Coronal Magnetic Field

The Sun is the celestial body in the sky with the closest relationship with the Earth. The violent eruptive activities happening on the Sun can greatly impact the human living environment and lead to disastrous consequences. It is well accepted that solar eruptions including the solar flare, prominence eruption and coronal mass ejection are the different manifestations of a single physical process powered by the magnetic free energy gradually stored in the corona prior to eruptions. Therefore, mapping the three-dimensional structure of coronal magnetic field is a prerequisite to understand the initiation mechanism of solar eruptions. Due to the technological and methodological difficulties, routine observations of the coronal magnetic field are still unavailable. Therefore, a number of methods have been developed to reconstruct the coronal magnetic field. This paper mainly reviews the applications of various reconstruction methods to the studies of the solar eruptions in the recent ten years.     

Intermittency of the Solar Magnetic Field and Solar Magnetic Activity Cycle

Small-scale solar magnetic fields demonstrate features of fractal intermittent behavior, which requires quantification. For this purpose we investigate how the observational estimate of the solar magnetic flux density \(B\) depends on resolution \(D\) in order to obtain the scaling \(\ln B_{D} = - k \ln D +a\) in a reasonably wide range. The quantity \(k\) demonstrates cyclic variations typical of a solar activity cycle. In addition, \(k\) depends on the magnetic flux density, i.e. the ratio of the magnetic flux to the area over which the flux is calculated, at a given instant. The quantity \(a\) demonstrates some cyclic variation, but it is much weaker than in the case of \(k\). The scaling obtained generalizes previous scalings found for the particular cycle phases. The scaling is typical of fractal structures. In our opinion, the results obtained trace small-scale action in the solar convective zone and its coexistence with the conventional large-scale solar dynamo based on differential rotation and mirror-asymmetric convection.     

The Magnetic Field of the Solar Corona from Pulsar Observations

We present a novel experiment with the capacity to independently measure both the electron density and the magnetic field of the solar corona. We achieve this through measurement of the excess Faraday rotation resulting from propagation of the polarised emission from a number of pulsars through the magnetic field of the solar corona. This method yields independent measures of the integrated electron density, via dispersion of the pulsed signal and the magnetic field, via the amount of Faraday rotation. In principle this allows the determination of the integrated magnetic field through the solar corona along many lines of sight without any assumptions regarding the electron density distribution. We present a detection of an increase in the rotation measure of the pulsar J1801-2304 of approximately 170 rad m² at an elongation of 0.96° from the centre of the solar disc. This corresponds to a lower limit of the magnetic field strength along this line of sight of >41.8 nT. The lack of precision in the integrated electron density measurement restricts this result to a limit, but application of coronal plasma models can further constrain this to approximately 0.5 μT, along a path passing 2.7 solar radii from the solar limb, which is consistent with predictions obtained using extensions to the source surface models published by the Wilcox Solar Observatory.     

太阳耀斑的光球磁场和色球速度场观测

太阳磁场望远镜安装了CCD图象接收处理系统后,得到许多精细结构的两维、实时磁场、速度场图。本文对其中观测的两群黑子,做耀斑磁场、速度场分析。在此基础上指出,异极性磁区相互渗透是普遍存在的,耀斑亮核均发生在异极性磁区相互挤压的前锋。这就为挤压无力场耀斑模式提供了有力的证据。同时发现,在耀斑发生的区域,流场的方向是向下的。     

Constraints on the Solar Internal Magnetic Field from a Buoyancy Driven Solar Dynamo

We report here results from a dynamo model developed on the lines of the Babcock-Leighton idea that the poloidal field is generated at the surface of the Sun from the decay of active regions. In this model magnetic buoyancy is handled with a realistic recipe – wherein toroidal flux is made to erupt from the overshoot layer wherever it exceeds a specified critical field B _c (10⁵ G). The erupted toroidal field is then acted upon by the α-effect near the surface to give rise to the poloidal field. In this paper we study the effect of buoyancy on the dynamo generated magnetic fields. Specifically, we show that the mechanism of buoyant eruption and the subsequent depletion of the toroidal field inside the overshoot layer, is capable of constraining the magnitude and distribution of the magnetic field there. We also believe that a critical study of this mechanism may give us new information regarding the solar interior and end with an example, where we propose a method for estimating an upper limit of the difusivity within the overshoot layer. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

太阳磁场理论外推研究进展

太阳磁场是研究太阳物理的关键。目前对太阳磁场的精确测量只限于光球层。对日冕磁场结构的了解,则多是以观测的光球磁场作为边界条件,在某种理论模型下进行外推。势场模型、线性无力场模型和非线性无力场模型是无力场假设下的三种理论外推模型。文章介绍了太阳磁场理论外推的基本方法和最新进展,和对三种模型中使用较多的外推方法,列举了它们在天文研究中的一些应用,同时也简略讨论了外推方法中存在的一些问题。     

Interpretation of Solar Magnetic Field Strength Observations

This study based on longitudinal Zeeman effect magnetograms and spectral line scans investigates the dependence of solar surface magnetic fields on the spectral line used and the way the line is sampled to estimate the magnetic flux emerging above the solar atmosphere and penetrating to the corona from magnetograms of the Mt. Wilson 150-foot tower synoptic program (MWO). We have compared the synoptic program λ5250 Å line of Fe?i to the line of Fe?i at λ5233 Å since this latter line has a broad shape with a profile that is nearly linear over a large portion of its wings. The present study uses five pairs of sampling points on the λ5233 Å line. Line profile observations show that the determination of the field strength from the Stokes V parameter or from line bisectors in the circularly polarized line profiles lead to similar dependencies on the spectral sampling of the lines, with the bisector method being the less sensitive. We recommend adoption of the field determined with the line bisector method as the best estimate of the emergent photospheric flux and further recommend the use of a sampling point as close to the line core as is practical. The combination of the line profile measurements and the cross-correlation of fields measured simultaneously with λ5250 Å and λ5233 Å yields a formula for the scale factor δ ^?1 that multiplies the MWO synoptic magnetic fields. By using ρ as the center-to-limb angle (CLA), a fit to this scale factor is δ ^?1=4.15?2.82sin?²(ρ). Previously δ ^?1=4.5?2.5sin?²(ρ) had been used. The new calibration shows that magnetic fields measured by the MDI system on the SOHO spacecraft are equal to 0.619±0.018 times the true value at a center-to-limb position 30°. Berger and Lites (2003, Solar Phys. 213, 213) found this factor to be 0.64±0.013 based on a comparison using the Advanced Stokes Polarimeter.     

Magnetic Field Properties of Solar X-Ray Jets

From a list of X-ray jets made by Shimojo et al. (1996), we selected events for which there were magnetic field data from NSO/Kitt Peak. Using co-aligned SXT and magnetograms, we examined the magnetic field properties of X-ray jets. We found that 8% of the jets studied occurred at a single pole (SP), 12% at a bipole (BP), 24% in a mixed polarity (MP) and 48% in a satellite polarity (ST). If the satellite polarity region is the same as the mixed polarity region, 72% of the jets occurred at the (general) mixed polarity region.We also investigated the magnetic evolution of jet-producing areas in active regions NOAA 7067, NOAA 7270, and NOAA 7858. It is found that X-ray jets favored regions of evolving magnetic flux (increasing or decreasing).     

Magnetic Field Strengths and Structures from Radio Observations of Solar Active Regions

Radio observations of some active regions (ARs) obtained with the Nobeyama radioheliograph at λ=1.76cm are used for estimating the magnetic field strength in the upper chromosphere, based on thermal bremsstrahlung. The results are compared with the magnetic field strength in the photosphere from observations with the Solar Magnetic Field Telescope (SMFT) at Huairou Solar Observing Station of Beijing Astronomical Observatory. The difference in the magnetic field strength between the two layers seems reasonable. The solar radio maps of active regions obtained with the Nobeyama radioheliograph, both in total intensity (I-map) and in circular polarizations (V-map), are compared with the optical magnetograms obtained with the SMFT. The comparison between the radio map in circular polarization and the longitudinal photospheric magnetogram of a plage region suggest that the radio map in circular polarization is a kind of magnetogram of the upper chromosphere. The comparison of the radio map in total intensity with the photospheric vector magnetogram of an AR shows that the radio map in total intensity gives indications of magnetic loops in the corona, thus we have a method of defining the coronal magnetic structure from the radio I-maps at λ=1.76 cm. Analysing the I-maps, we identified three components: (a) a compact bright source; (b) a narrow elongated structure connecting two main magnetic islands of opposite polarities (observed in both the optical and radio magnetograms); (c) a wide, diffuse, weak component that corresponds to a wide structure in the solar active region which shows in most cases an S or a reversed S contour, which is probably due to the differential rotation of the Sun. The last two components suggest coronal loops on different spatial scales above the neutral line of the longitudinal photospheric magnetic field.     

Independent Global Modes of Solar Magnetic Field Fluctuations

Observed solar, interplanetary and geomagnetic time series contain quasi periodicities on scales of 1–2.5 years. The further discovery of 1.3 year fluctuations in helioseismic observations suggests that a variety of signals may be related to the underlying dynamo in the Sun. We use independent component analysis to study the temporal and spatial variations of a few statistically independent global modes of the axisymmetric solar magnetic field over a period of 25 years. Five modes capture the salient properties of the data. Two modes describe the polar and high latitude fields, and present 1–1.5 year quasi periodicities. The other three modes correspond to low and mid-latitude phenomena and show both 1.3 and 1.7-year variations. By comparing the characteristic time scales, dates of occurrence and heliocentric latitudes of these modes, we connect them to their manifestations in heliospheric time series.     

太阳磁场观测研究

简要回顾了近几年国际上太阳磁场研究的一些重要进展，包括耀斑与磁切和电流的关系，电流螺度和磁螺度，磁场拓扑性，三维磁场外推，色球磁场研究，日冕磁场研究，内网络磁元，磁流和振荡，极区磁场观测以及色球磁元观测等方面内容，同时也介绍了怀柔太阳观测站最近所取得的主要成果，自20世纪90年代以来，YOHKOH高分辨率的太阳X射线数据，SOHO的多波段大尺度观测，TRACE的高分辨太阳过渡区资料，为研究太阳磁场从内部到距离几十太阳半径处的大范围演化提供了依据，高效的空间资料结合长期的地面资料，将是正派推动太阳磁场研究的重要手段和必然趋势。     

太阳耀斑的厘米波和分米波射电辐射

综述了太阳厘米波射电源的形态特征和演化，以及厘米波辐射与X射线源的特性比较；介绍了太阳分米波射电辐射的一些最观测结果，包括分米波Ⅲ型爆发、纤维结构、斑马纹结构、DPS漂移脉动结构、spike尖峰辐射等多种精细结构，并讨论了可能的辐射机制。     

Fine Structures of Magnetic Field in Solar Quiet Region

In this paper, we present a time series of Fei 5250.2 Å photospheric filtergrams and corresponding magnetograms in a quiet region. The relationship between fine structures of granulation and magnetic fields is analyzed. It is found that although most bright filigree features in photospheric filtergrams are related to corresponding magnetic features, they are generally not cospatial. It is also found that some bright features and their corresponding photospheric magnetic fields show fast changes within several minutes.     

The Floor in the Solar Wind Magnetic Field Revisited

Svalgaard and Cliver (Astrophys. J. Lett. 661, L203, 2007) proposed that the solar-wind magnetic-field strength [B] at Earth has a ??floor?? value of ??4.6 nT in yearly averages, which is approached but not broached at solar minima. They attributed the floor to a constant baseline solar open flux. In both 2008 and 2009, the notion of such a floor was undercut by annual B averages of ??4 nT. Here we present a revised view of both the level and the concept of the floor. Two independent correlations indicate that B has a floor of ??2.8 nT in yearly averages. These are i) a relationship between solar polar-field strength and yearly averages of B for the last four 11-year minima (B _MIN), and ii) a precursor relationship between peak sunspot number for cycles 14??C?23 and B _MIN at their preceding minima. These correlations suggest that at 11-year minima, B consists of i) a floor of ??2.8 nT, and ii) a component primarily due to the solar polar fields that varies from ??0 nT to ??3 nT. The solar polar fields provide the ??seed?? for the subsequent sunspot maximum. Removing the ??2.8 nT floor from B _MIN brings the percentage decrease in B between the 1996 and 2009 minima into agreement with the corresponding decrease in solar polar-field strength. Based on a decomposition of the solar wind (from 1972??C?2009) into high-speed streams, coronal mass ejections, and slow solar wind, we suggest that the source of the floor in B is the slow solar wind. During 2009, Earth was in slow solar-wind flows ??70% of the time. We propose that the floor corresponds to a baseline (non-cyclic or ground state) open solar flux of ??8×10¹³ Wb, which originates in persistent small-scale (supergranular and granular) field.