paper

The correlation of fractal structures in the photospheric and the coronal magnetic field

arXiv:0908.3950 · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/200911852

Abstract

This work examines the relation between the fractal properties of the photospheric magnetic patterns and those of the coronal magnetic fields in solar active regions.Our results show no correlation between the fractal dimensions of the observed 2d photospheric structures and the extrapolated unstable volumes in the corona, when nonlinear force-free extrapolation is used. This result is independent of efforts to (1) bring the photospheric magnetic fields closer to a nonlinear force-free equilibrium and (2) omit the lower part of the modeled magnetic field volume that is almost completely filled by unstable volumes. A significant correlation between the fractal dimensions of the photospheric and coronal magnetic features is only observed at the zero level (lower limit) of approximation of a current-free (potential) magnetic field extrapolation. We conclude that the complicated transition from photospheric non-force-free fields to coronal force-free ones hampers any direct correlation between the fractal dimensions of the 2d photospheric patterns and their 3d counterparts in the corona at the nonlinear force-free limit.

9 pages, 7 figures, 7 tables. Astronomy & Astrophysics (in press)

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