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Session 2 - Everything Else.
Display session, Friday, June 27
Ballroom C, Chair: Richard Canfield
We have investigated the emergence of current-carrying magnetic loops into the solar corona. In previous works, we have denomstrated that a magnetic loop in the corona can be formed by twisting the field lines of an existing, in situ, bipolar potential field structure in the corona by plasma convections. This action induces an electric current, primarily in the toroidal direction, resulting in a magnetic loop with helical field lines (Van Hoven et al. 1995). In the present work, we show that a current-carrying magnetic flux rope emerges directly through the solar surface from underneath the photosphere into an almost field-free corona. This process involves a simultaneous injection of both toroidal magnetic field and toroidal electric current into the corona from the surface. By specifying the space-time profiles of the normal components of the emerging magnetic field and the current density at the base (photosphere), which can be obtained from observations, our simulations show that a current-carrying flux rope emerges from the surface as if it were driven by buoyancy from under the photosphere. The flux rope rises into the corona and gradually relaxes to a near force-free state. Multiple-loop interactions will also be discussed.
* Work supported, in part, by NASA SPT, NSF ATM and AFPL; computational resources provided by NSF and UCI at SDSC, and by DOE at NERSC.
Van Hoven, G., Mok, Y. and Mikic, Z., Ap.J. 1995, 440, L105.
