A New Method for Finding Topological Separators in a Magnetic Field

Magnetic topology is a powerful tool for constraining certain physical properties of a given magnetic configuration, including the strengths and locations of current sheets, relative helicity and the magnetic free energy available for reconnection. A critical feature of magnetic topology is the separator, a field line bordering several different regions of connectivity. With existing methods, these field lines are at best computationally expensive and at worst impossible to find. A new method is presented for finding the Minimal Separator Set, all of the separators that necessarily exist in a configuration, and to use this information in combination with the optical analogy and a simulated annealing method to ‘cool’ an initial guess for each separator into a good approximation.