Solar Physics Division Meeting 2000, June 19-22
Session 2. Corona, Solar Wind, Flares, CMEs, Solar-stellar, Instrumentation, Other
Display, Chair: J. Krall, Monday-Thursday, June 19, 2000, 8:00am-6:00pm, Forum Ballroom

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[2.09] Coronal Heating and Sheared Neutral Line Length in Solar Active Regions

N. W. Griffiths, G. H. Fisher (University of California, Berkeley), T. R. Metcalf (Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory, Palo Alto), D. A. Falconer (University of Alabama, Huntsville)

We present a comparison of X-ray and magnetic data from a sample of several hundred solar active regions, with the aim of finding which global magnetic properties are most strongly related to observed levels of coronal heating. The study includes SFD images from several different bandpasses of the Soft X-ray Telescope on the Yohkoh spacecraft, and vector magnetogram data from the Haleakala Stokes Polarimeter at the University of Hawaii's Mees Solar Observatory. Following upon earlier work by Falconer, we will examine the role that sheared neutral lines (as well as other magnetic quantities, such as magnetic flux), might play in determining the level of coronal heating. In particular, we will test whether sheared neutral line length within active regions provides a better correlation with X-ray luminosity than the established relationship between unsigned magnetic flux and X-rays.


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