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Reconstructing Highly-twisted Magnetic Fields

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Abstract

We investigate the ability of a nonlinear force-free code to calculate highly-twisted magnetic field configurations using the Titov and Démoulin (Astron. Astrophys. 351:707, 1999) equilibrium field as a test case. The code calculates a force-free field using boundary conditions on the normal component of the field in the lower boundary, and the normal component of the current density over one polarity of the field in the lower boundary. The code can also use the current density over both polarities of the field in the lower boundary as a boundary condition. We investigate the accuracy of the reconstructions with increasing flux-rope surface twist number \(N_{\text{t}}\), achieved by decreasing the sub-surface line current in the model. We find that the code can approximately reconstruct the Titov–Démoulin field for surface twist numbers up to \(N_{\text{t}} \approx 8.8\). This includes configurations with bald patches. We investigate the ability to recover bald patches, and more generally identify the limitations of our method for highly-twisted fields. The results have implications for our ability to reconstruct coronal magnetic fields from observational data.

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Acknowledgements

VD is supported by the Australian Research Training Program. VD thanks Donald Melrose for helpful comments and suggestions on the manuscript. This work was funded in part by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP180102408). We thank an anonymous referee for their work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, The University of Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Victor M. Demcsak, Michael S. Wheatland, Alpha Mastrano & Kai E. Yang

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  1. Victor M. Demcsak
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  2. Michael S. Wheatland
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  3. Alpha Mastrano
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  4. Kai E. Yang
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Correspondence to Victor M. Demcsak.

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Demcsak, V.M., Wheatland, M.S., Mastrano, A. et al. Reconstructing Highly-twisted Magnetic Fields. Sol Phys 295, 116 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-020-01681-5

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