The Magnetic Field, Horizontal Motion and Helicity in a Fast Emerging Flux Region which Eventually forms a Delta Spot

We studied the behavior of magnetic field, horizontal motion and helicity in a fast emerging flux region NOAA 10488 which eventually forms a δ spot. It is found that the rotation of photospheric footpoints forms in the earlier stage of magnetic flux emergence and the relative shear motion of different magnetic flux systems appears later in this active region (AR). Therefore the emerging process of the AR can be separated into two phases: rotation and shear. We have computed the magnetic helicity injected into the corona using the local correlation tracking (LCT) technique. Furthermore we determined the vertical component of current helicity density and the vertical component of induction electric fields E_z = (V× B)_z in the photosphere. Particularly we have presented the comparison of the injection rate of magnetic helicity and the variation of the current helicity density. The main results are as follows: (1) The strong shear motion (SSM) between the new emerging flux system and the old one brings more magnetic helicity into the corona than the twisting motions. (2) After the maturity of the main bipolar spots, their twist decreases and the SSM becomes dominant and the major contributor of magnetic non-potentiality in the solar atmosphere in this AR. (3) The positions of the maxima of E_z (about 0.1 ∼ 0.2 V cm⁻¹) shift from the twisting areas to the areas showing SSMs as the AR evolved from the rotation phase to the shear one, but no obvious correlation is found between the kernels of Hα flare and E_z for the M1.6 flare in this AR. (4) The coronal helicity inferred from the horizontal motion of this AR amounts to −6 × 10⁴³ Mx². It is comparable with the coronal helicity of ARs producing flares with coronal mass ejections (CMEs) or helicity carried away by magnetic clouds (MCs) reported in previous studies (Nindos, Zhang, and Zhang, 2003; Nindos and Andrews, 2004). In addition, the formation of the δ configuration in this AR belongs to the third formation type indicated by Zirin and Liggett (1987), i.e., collision of opposite polarities from different dipoles, and can be naturally explained by the SSM.