Doubly Helical Coronal Ejections from Dynamos and Their Role in Sustaining the Solar Cycle

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Two questions about the solar magnetic field might be answered together once their connection is identified. The first is important for large-scale dynamo theory: what prevents the magnetic back-reaction forces from shutting down the dynamo cycle? The second question is, what determines the handedness of twist and writhe in magnetized coronal ejecta? Magnetic helicity conservation is important for answering both questions. Conservation implies that dynamo generation of large-scale writhed structures is accompanied by the oppositely signed twist along these structures. The latter is associated with the back-reaction force. We suggest that coronal mass ejections simultaneously liberate small-scale twist and large-scale writhe of opposite sign, helping to prevent the cycle from quenching and enabling a net magnetic flux change in each hemisphere. Solar observations and helicity spectrum measurements from our simulation of a rising flux tube support this idea. We show a new pictorial of dynamo flux generation that includes the back-reaction and magnetic helicity conservation and represents the field by a ribbon or tube rather than a line.
All Related Versions