Anatomy of a flare-producing current layer dynamically formed in a coronal magnetic structure

No matter how intense magnetic flux it contains, a coronal magnetic structure has little free magnetic energy when a composing magnetic field is close to a potential field, or current-free field where no volume electric current flows. What kind of electric current system is developed is therefore a key to evaluating the activity of a coronal magnetic structure. Since the corona is a highly conductive medium, a coronal electric current tends to survive without being dissipated, so the free magnetic energy provided by a coronal electric current is normally hard to release in the corona. This work aims at clarifying how a coronal electric current system is structurally developed into a system responsible for producing a flare. Toward this end, we perform diffusive MHD simulations for the emergence of a magnetic flux tube with different twist applied to it, and go through the process of structuring a coronal electric current in a twisted flux tube emerging to form a coronal magnetic structure. Interestingly, when a strongly twisted flux tube emerges, there spontaneously forms a structure inside the flux tube, where a coronal electric current changes flow pattern from field-aligned dominant to cross-field dominant. We demonstrate that this structure plays a key role in releasing free magnetic energy via rapid dissipation of a coronal electric current, thereby producing a flare.