The propagation of torsion along flux tubes subject to dynamical nonequilibrium |
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| Authors: | E N Parker |
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| Institution: | Department of Physics,Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics , University of Chicago , Chicago, Illinois, 60637, U.S.A |
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| Abstract: | Abstract The dynamical nonequilibrium of close-packed flux tubes is driven by the torsion in the individual tubes so that, wherever tubes with the same sense of twisting come into contact, there is reconnection of their azimuthal field components. The reconnection consumes the local torsion, causing the propagation of torsional Alfven waves into the region from elsewhere along the tubes. The formal problem of the propagation of the torsion along twisted flux tubes is presented and some of the basic physical properties worked out in the limit of small torsion. It is pointed out that in tubes with finite twisting the propagation of torsional Alfven waves can be a more complicated phenomenon. Application to the sun suggests that the propagation of torsion from below the visible surface up into the corona is an important energy supply to the corona for a period of perhaps 10–20 hours after the emergence of the flux tubes through the surface of the sun, bringing up torsion from depths of 104km or more. Torsion is continually supplied by the manipulation and shuffling of the field by the convection, of course. |
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| Keywords: | Stability rotating stratified fluid |
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