Connecting the Sun's High-Resolution Magnetic Carpet to the Turbulent Heliosphere

Abstract

The solar wind is connected to the Sun's atmosphere by flux tubes that are rooted in an ever-changing pattern of positive and negative magnetic polarities on the surface. Observations indicate that the magnetic field is filamentary and intermittent across a wide range of spatial scales. However, we do not know to what extent the complex flux tube topology seen near the Sun survives as the wind expands into interplanetary space. In order to study the possible long-distance connections between the corona and the heliosphere, we developed new models of turbulence-driven solar wind acceleration along empirically constrained field lines. We used a potential-field model of the Quiet Sun to trace field lines into the ecliptic plane with unprecedented spatial resolution at their footpoints. For each flux tube, a one-dimensional model was created with an existing wave/turbulence code that solves equations of mass, momentum, and energy conservation from the photosphere to 4 AU. To take account of stream-stream interactions between flux tubes, we used those models as inner boundary conditions for a time-steady MHD description of radial and longitudinal structure in the ecliptic. Corotating stream interactions smear out much of the smallest-scale variability, making it difficult to see how individual flux tubes on granular or supergranular scales can survive out to 1 AU. However, our models help clarify the level of "background" variability with which waves and turbulent eddies should be expected to interact. Also, the modeled fluctuations in magnetic field magnitude were seen to match measured power spectra quite well.

Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. 18 pages (emulateapj style), 17 figures

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• Extended MHD modeling of the steady solar corona and the solar wind
• The Role of Turbulence in Coronal Heating and Solar Wind Expansion
• Fading Coronal Structure and the Onset of Turbulence in the Young Solar Wind
• Inbound waves in the solar corona: a direct indicator of Alfvén Surface location
• Turbulence Transport Modeling and First Orbit Parker Solar Probe (PSP) Observations
• Ensemble Simulations of Proton Heating in the Solar Wind via Turbulence and Ion Cyclotron Resonance
• The Solar Corona as probed by Comet Lovejoy (C/2011 W3)
• Low-frequency Alfven Waves Produced by Magnetic Reconnection in the Sun's Magnetic Carpet
• Turbulence-Driven Coronal Heating and Improvements to Empirical Forecasting of the Solar Wind
• Modeling of Joint Parker Solar Probe - Metis/Solar Orbiter Observations
• Turbulent Proton Heating Rate in the Solar Wind from $5$ to $45R_{\odot }$
• Nonlinear Force-Free Field Modeling of the Solar Magnetic Carpet and Comparison with SDO/HMI and Sunrise/IMaX Observations
• Time-Dependent Turbulent Heating of Open Flux Tubes in the Chromosphere, Corona, and Solar Wind
• Photospheric Abundances of Polar Jets on the Sun Observed by Hinode
• Uncertainty Estimates of Solar Wind Prediction using HMI Photospheric Vector and Spatial Standard Deviation Synoptic Maps
• Inward Propagating Plasma Parcels in the Solar Corona: Models with Aerodynamic Drag, Ablation, and Snowplow Accretion
• Solar wind modeling: a computational tool for the classroom
• Magnetic Influences on the Solar Wind (Ph.D. Dissertation)