HR: 12:05h
AN: SM12A-08    [Abstracts]
TI: Observations of Filamentary Structures in the Solar Corona and Evidence for Global Magnetic Reconnection
AU: * Woo, R
EM: Richard.Woo@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive MS 238-725, Pasadena, CA 91011 United States
AB: Magnetic fields are fundamental for understanding the Sun and its atmosphere, but establishing the Sun's global magnetic topology has been hampered by the lack of detailed measurements other than those of the photosphere. Contrary to the commonly held notion that the coronal magnetic field is highly non-radial, new observations show that it is predominantly radial. While improving resolution of solar observations has revealed ever finer small-scale and filamentary structures in the photosphere and inner corona, radio scattering and propagation measurements have found the corona to be permeated by ubiquitous filamentary structures more than two orders of magnitude finer than those resolved in the solar observations. Here, we use these radio measurements to show that the heretofore hidden fine-scale structures extend radially from all over the Sun, thus providing independent evidence for the predominantly radial direction of the coronal magnetic field. We also show that the filamentary structures undergo continual reconnection at the base of the corona, demonstrating their key role in the elusive connection between magnetic fields of the photosphere and corona, as well as in the origin and evolution of the solar wind, and explaining why sources of the solar wind inferred from source surface magnetic field models are at odds with those inferred from recent observations.
DE: 7509 Corona
DE: 7524 Magnetic fields
DE: 7526 Magnetic reconnection (2723, 7835)
DE: 7529 Photosphere
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005