HR: 08:00h
AN: SH41C-01 INVITED    [Abstracts]
TI: Solar Reconnection
AU: * Antiochos, S K
EM: antiochos@nrl.navy.mil
AF: Naval Research Laboratory, Code 7675, Washington, DC 20375, United States
AB: High spatial and temporal resolution observations from SOHO, TRACE, Hinode, and STEREO prove dramatically that the photosphere is never simple and the corona is never quiet. The photosphere exhibits a constantly evolving, multipolar flux distribution on scales ranging from the magnetic carpet to active region complexes. The corona exhibits brightenings and jetting on a vast range of temporal and spatial scales: from small transient spicules, to long-lived coronal loops, to giant coronal mass ejections. We present theoretical and numerical results demonstrating that magnetic reconnection is the physical process underlying all of this activity. These results also show that the topology of the solar field is the key to understanding why solar activity exhibits such an apparently wide variety of forms. Conservation of magnetic helicity turns out to be the critical condition that distinguishes between the different types of reconnection in the solar corona. We discuss the implications of our results for interpreting the latest observations from Hinode and STEREO. This work was supported, in part, by NASA, ONR, and the NSF.
UR: http://solartheory.nrl.navy.mil
DE: 7509 Corona
DE: 7513 Coronal mass ejections (2101)
DE: 7526 Magnetic reconnection (2723, 7835)
DE: 7827 Kinetic and MHD theory
SC: SPA-Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting