DIPOLE-FIELD TYPE MAGNETIC DISTURBANCES AND AURORAL ACTIVITIES

1961 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 350-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. K. Bhattacharyya

The characteristics of the magnetic field components at Agincourt have been calculated for a current system produced by an electric dipole located in the region of auroral activity near Ottawa. It is noted that, irrespective of the orientation of the dipole, the horizontal magnetic field component rotates in the clockwise and anticlockwise senses for motion of the dipole towards the east and the west respectively, when the dipole is situated in the north half of the sky as seen from the observing station.Next, the magnetograms obtained at Agincourt have been studied at those times of the night when auroral activity was recorded in the all-sky camera photographs at Springhill near Ottawa. It is noted that the horizontal magnetic field describes a loop during a particular phase of auroral activity because of its gradual growth and decay. The distributions of clockwise and anticlockwise rotations with respect to local time are found to be very similar in many respects to those of auroral motions to the east and west respectively. The sense of rotation of the loop is predominantly anticlockwise in the early part of the night and clockwise in the late hours of the night.It is found that eastward and westward orientations of the dipole are the most probable ones. The direction of movement and the initial location of the predominant auroral form in the sky are found to tally well with those of the dipole deduced from a study of the magnetograms.It seems that there is a time sequence relationship between successive phases of auroral activity and changes of characteristics of the loops described by the horizontal magnetic field vector. The area of a loop and the maximum magnitude of the field vector in the loop appear to be related to the brightness and horizontal extent of the auroral forms.

2019 ◽  
Vol 632 ◽  
pp. A112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahul Yadav ◽  
Jaime de la Cruz Rodríguez ◽  
Carlos José Díaz Baso ◽  
Avijeet Prasad ◽  
Tine Libbrecht ◽  
...  

We analyze high-resolution spectropolarimetric observations of a flux-emerging region (FER) in order to understand its magnetic and kinematic structure. Our spectropolarimetric observations in the He I 10830 Å spectral region of a FER were recorded with GRIS at the 1.5 m aperture GREGOR telescope. A Milne–Eddington-based inversion code was employed to extract the photospheric information of the Si I spectral line, whereas the He I triplet line was analyzed with the Hazel inversion code, which takes into account the joint action of the Hanle and the Zeeman effects. The spectropolarimetric analysis of the Si I line reveals a complex magnetic structure near the vicinity of the FER, where a weak (350–600 G) and horizontal magnetic field was observed. In contrast to the photosphere, the analysis of the He I triplet presents a smooth variation of the magnetic field vector (ranging from 100 to 400 G) and velocities across the FER. Moreover, we find supersonic downflows of ∼40 km s−1 appearing near the foot points of loops connecting two pores of opposite polarity, whereas strong upflows of 22 km s−1 appear near the apex of the loops. At the location of supersonic downflows in the chromosphere, we observed downflows of 3 km s−1 in the photosphere. Furthermore, nonforce-free field extrapolations were performed separately at two layers in order to understand the magnetic field topology of the FER. We determine, using extrapolations from the photosphere and the observed chromospheric magnetic field, that the average formation height of the He I triplet line is ∼2 Mm from the solar surface. The reconstructed loops using photospheric extrapolations along an arch filament system have a maximum height of ∼10.5 Mm from the solar surface with a foot-point separation of ∼19 Mm, whereas the loops reconstructed using chromospheric extrapolations reach around ∼8.4 Mm above the solar surface with a foot-point separation of ∼16 Mm at the chromospheric height. The magnetic topology in the FER suggests the presence of small-scale loops beneath the large loops. Under suitable conditions, due to magnetic reconnection, these loops can trigger various heating events in the vicinity of the FER.


1974 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. K. Bhatia

The effects of neutral gas friction, on the Rayleigh–Taylor instability of an infinitely conducting plasma of variable density, with ion viscosity and Hall currents, are investigated. For an ambient horizontal magnetic field, it is shown that the solution is characterized by a variational principle. Making use of the existence of this, proper solutions are obtained for a semi-infinite plasma, in which the density is stratified exponentially along the vertical, confined between two planes. In the simultaneous presence of the effects of ion viscosity and Hall currents, it is found that the potentially unstable stratification is unstable for all wavenumber perturbations, irrespective of whether or not the effects of neutral gas friction are included. Further, it is found that the growth rate increases with both Hall currents and neutral gas friction, and decreases with ion viscosity. The influence of the Hall currents and the neutral gas friction, therefore, is destabilizing, while that of ion viscosity is stabilizing. In the absence of Hall currents, it is found that the viscous plasma is stable, even for a potentially unstable stratification, for perturbations confined to a cone about the magnetic field vector. The angle of the cone of stable propagation of an inviscid plasma,. however, decreases with both Hall currents and effects of neutral gas friction.


1972 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Bhowmik

The influence of finite Larmor frequency on the stability of a viscous, finitely conducting liquid in a downward gravitational field under the influence of a uniform magnetic field directed along or normal to gravity, is investigated. The solution in each case is shown to be characterized by a variational principle Based on the variational principle, an approximate solution is obtained for the stability of a layer of fluid of constant kinematic viscosity and an exponentia density distribution. It has been found that finite resistivity and finite Larmor frequency do not introduce any instabifity in a potentially stable configuration. However, for a potentially unstable configuration we find that, for an ideal Hal plasma, the results depend on the orientation of the magnetic field, though the instability persists for all wave-numbers in the presence of non-ideal (finite resistivity and viscosity) effects. For the field aligned with gravity, it is found that a potentially unstable field-free configuration is stabilized if the buoyancy number B ( = gβ/12 V2) is less than unity. For B > 1, the instability arises for wave-numbers exceeding a critical value, which decreases on allowing for Hall terms in the generalized Ohm's law, suggesting a destabilizing influence of finite Larmor frequency. For an ambient horizontal magnetic field, it is found that an ideal plasma is stable, even for B > 0, for perturbations confined to a cone about the magnetic field vector. The angle of the cone of stable propagation, however, decreases on account of finite Larmor frequency.


2018 ◽  
Vol 616 ◽  
pp. A46 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Pastor Yabar ◽  
M. J. Martínez González ◽  
M. Collados

The magnetism at the poles is similar to that of the quiet Sun in the sense that no active regions are present there. However, the polar quiet Sun is somewhat different from that at the activity belt as it has a global polarity that is clearly modulated by the solar cycle. We study the polar magnetism near an activity maximum when these regions change their polarity, from which it is expected that its magnetism should be less affected by the global field. To fully characterise the magnetic field vector, we use deep full Stokes polarimetric observations of the 15 648.5 and 15 652.8 Å FeI lines. We observe the north pole as well as a quiet region at disc centre to compare their field distributions. In order to calibrate the projection effects, we observe an additional quiet region at the east limb. We find that the two limb datasets share similar magnetic field vector distributions. This means that close to a maximum, the poles look like typical limb, quiet-Sun regions. However, the magnetic field distributions at the limbs are different from the distribution inferred at disc centre. At the limbs, we infer a new population of magnetic fields with relatively strong intensities (~600−800 G), inclined by ~30° with respect to the line of sight, and with an azimuth aligned with the solar disc radial direction. This line-of-sight orientation interpreted as a single magnetic field gives rise to non-vertical fields in the local reference frame and aligned towards disc centre. This peculiar topology is very unlikely for such strong fields according to theoretical considerations. We propose that this new population at the limbs is due to the observation of unresolved magnetic loops as seen close to the limb. These loops have typical granular sizes as measured in the disc centre. At the limbs, where the spatial resolution decreases, we observe them spatially unresolved, which explains the new population of magnetic fields that is inferred. This is the first (indirect) evidence of small-scale magnetic loops outside the disc centre and would imply that these small-scale structures are ubiquitous on the entire solar surface. This result has profound implications for the energetics not only of the photosphere, but also of the outer layers since these loops have been reported to reach the chromosphere and the low corona.


2006 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 725-733 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Viljanen ◽  
E. I. Tanskanen ◽  
A. Pulkkinen

Abstract. Auroral substorms are one of the major causes of large geomagnetically induced currents (GIC) in technological systems. This study deals with different phases of the auroral substorm concerning their severity from the GIC viewpoint. Our database consists of 833 substorms observed by the IMAGE magnetometer network in 1997 (around sunspot minimum) and 1999 (rising phase of the sunspot cycle), divided into two classes according to the Dst index: non-storm (Dst>-40 nT, 696 events) and storm-time ones (Dst<-40 nT, 137 events). The key quantity concerning GIC is the time derivative of the horizontal magnetic field vector (dH/dt) whose largest values during substorms occur most probably at about 5 min after the onset at stations with CGM latitude less than 72 deg. When looking at the median time of the occurrence of the maximum dH/dt after the expansion onset, it increases as a function of latitude from about 15 min at CGM lat=56 deg to about 45 min at CGM lat=75 deg for non-storm substorms. For storm-time events, these times are about 5 min longer. Based on calculated ionospheric equivalent currents, large dH/dt occur mostly during the substorm onset when the amplitude of the westward electrojet increases rapidly.


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