HR: 1340h
AN: SH13A-0294    [Abstracts]
TI: Generation of Erupting Flux Ropes by Reconnection Among Smaller Scale Flux Tubes
AU: * Choe, G
EM: gchoe@pppl.gov
AF: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, P. O. Box 451, Princeton, NJ 08543-0451 United States
AU: Cheng, C Z
EM: fcheng@pppl.gov
AF: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, P. O. Box 451, Princeton, NJ 08543-0451 United States
AU: Cheng, C Z
EM: fcheng@pppl.gov
AF: National Space Organization, 9 Prosperity 1st Road, Hsinchu, 30077 Taiwan
AU: Lee, J
EM: leej@njit.edu
AF: New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Boulevard, Newark, NJ 07102-1982 United States
AB: In eruptive flares with CMEs, several loop-shaped brightenings are often observed before the major mass ejection loop is ejected. The distance between the legs of the CME loop is generally much larger than the separation between H alpha flare ribbons or that between hard X-ray emission features. It can be thus inferred that the large scale erupting flux rope should be generated by reconnection among flux tubes that are commonly observed in the active region corona. These average scale flux tubes are energized by vortical motions, which are believed to be present in or below the solar surface and supply a net magnetic helicity to the coronal plasma system. In this 3D MHD simulation study, we follow the evolution of an idealized active region composed of several magnetic flux tubes whose original field connectivities are individually discrete. Vortical motions in the footpoint level are imposed within individual flux tubes so that the longitudinal magnetogram does not change at all while magnetic shear near the polarity inversion line rapidly increases as could be seen in a vector magnetogram of an eruptive active region. Magnetic reconnection between the flux tubes results in new field line connections, in which the distance between the footpoints is considerably larger than the original one. After a certain amount of magnetic flux is reconnected, a new helical flux rope of a visibly large scale is created and is expelled out of the active region leaving the underneath field lines open. An observational example corresponding to this simulation will also be presented.
DE: 7509 Corona
DE: 7513 Coronal mass ejections (2101)
DE: 7519 Flares
DE: 7526 Magnetic reconnection (2723, 7835)
SC: SPA-Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005