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W.P. Abbett (UC Berkeley)
Understanding the sub-photospheric structure and dynamics of emerging active region magnetic fields, and how these fields are coupled to structures observed above the photosphere, is important to a variety of ongoing research projects in both the solar physics and space science communities (for example, the effort to predict the onset of intense episodes of solar activity such as CMEs and flares). Over the past decade, much progress has been made by using 2-D MHD codes and the 1-D ``thin flux tube'' approximation to describe the evolution of buoyant magnetic flux tubes in the solar interior. However, in recent years, the rapid evolution of computer technology, coupled with advances in computational algorithms, have made it possible to use physically self-consistent, 3-D MHD numerical simulations to model the evolution of strong magnetic fields through stratified model convection zones without the restrictive assumptions of earlier models. This review will summarize efforts to use modern 3-D codes as tools to test predictions of earlier theoretical models and to interpret observational data. The emphasis will be on the progress made in modeling emerging magnetic flux in the solar interior; however, a brief overview of recent efforts to couple sub-photospheric simulations to models of the solar atmosphere and corona will also be presented.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: abbett@ssl.berkeley.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.