Solar Flares as Cascades of Reconnecting Magnetic Loops

Preprint

21 February 2003

preprint
Published by arXiv in arXiv

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.cond-mat/0210201

Abstract

A model for the solar coronal magnetic field is proposed where multiple directed loops evolve in space and time. Loops injected at small scales are anchored by footpoints of opposite polarity moving randomly on a surface. Nearby footpoints of the same polarity aggregate, and loops can reconnect when they collide. This may trigger a cascade of further reconnection, representing a solar flare. Numerical simulations show that a power law distribution of flare energies emerges, associated with a scale free network of loops, indicating self-organized criticality.

Keywords

RECONNECTING MAGNETIC
NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS
MAGNETIC LOOPS
SOLAR FLARE
FOOTPOINTS
POLARITY
CASCADE

All Related Versions

Version 1, 2002-10-09, ArXiv
Version 2, 2003-02-21, ArXiv
Published version: Physical Review Letters, 90 (13), 131101.

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