• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.spc1
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• pp.37-44
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• 2003

In this paper, we review recent studies on the magnetic helicity changes of solar active regions by photospheric horizontal motions. Recently, Chae(200l) developed a methodology to determine the magnetic helicity change rate via photospheric horizontal motions. We have applied this methodology to four cases: (1) NOAA AR 8100 which has a series of homologous X-ray flares, (2) three active regions which have four eruptive major X-ray flares, (3) NOAA AR 9236 which has three eruptive X-class flares, and (4) NOAA AR 8668 in which a large filament was under formation. As a result, we have found several interesting results. First, the rate of magnetic helicity injection strongly depends on an active region and its evolution. Its mean rate ranges from 4 to $17 {\times} 10^{40}\;Mx^2\;h^{-1}$. Especially when the homologous flares occurred and when the filament was formed, significant rates of magnetic helicity were continuously deposited in the corona via photospheric shear flows. Second, there is a strong positive correlation between the magnetic helicity accumulated during the flaring time interval of the homologous flares in AR 8100 and the GOES X-ray flux integrated over the flaring time. This indicates that the occurrence of a series of homologous flares is physically related to the accumulation of magnetic helicity in the corona by photospheric shearing motions. Third, impulsive helicity variations took place near the flaring times of some strong flares. These impulsive variations whose time scales are less than one hour are attributed to localized velocity kernels around the polarity inversion line. Fourth, considering the filament eruption associated with an X1.8 flare started about 10 minutes before the impulsive variation of the helicity change rate, we suggest that the impulsive helicity variation is not a cause of the eruptive solar flare but its result. Finally, we discuss the physical implications on these results and our future plans.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.187-194
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• 2023

The remote sensing technique of measuring the magnetic field was applied first to sunspots by Hale (1908). Later Babcock (1961) showed that the solar surface magnetic field on a global scale is a dipole in first-order approximation and that this dipole field reverses once every solar cycle. The Wilcox Solar Observatory (WSO) supplies the spherical harmonics coefficients of the solar corona magnetic field of each Carrington Rotation, calculated based on the remotely-sensed photospheric magnetic field of the solar surface. To infer the internal current system producing the global solar coronal magnetic field structure and evolution of the Sun, we calculate the multipole components of the solar magnetic field using the WSO data from 1976 to 2019. The prominent cycle components over the last 4 solar activity cycles are axis-symmetric fields of the dipole and octupole. This implies that the current inversion driving the solar magnetic field reversal originates from the equatorial region and spreads to the whole globe. Thus, a more accurate solar dynamo model must include an explanation of the origin and evolution of such solar internal current dynamics.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.31.4-32
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• 2016

Observing the solar atmosphere with ground-based telescopes in the near-infrared has a number of advantages when compared to classical measurements in visible wavelengths. One of them comes from the magnetic sensitivity of spectral lines, which varies as ${\lambda}_g$, where g is the effective $Land{\acute{e}}$ factor of the transition. This wavelength dependence makes the near-infrared range adequate to study subtle spatial or temporal variations of the magnetic field. Spectral lines, such as the photospheric Fe I $1.5648{\mu}m$ spectral line, with a $Land{\acute{e}}$ factor g=3, have often been used in the past for this type of studies. To study the chromosphere, the Ca II IR triplet and the He I $1.0830{\mu}m$ triplet are the most often observed lines. The latter has the additional advantage that the photospheric Si I $1.0827{\mu}m$ is close enough so that photosphere and chromosphere can be simultaneously recorded with a single detector in a spectrograph. The instrument TIP (Tenerife Infrared Polarimeter) has been continuously operating since 1999 at the 70-cm German VTT of the Observatorio del Teide and has been recently moved to the 1.5-m German GREGOR. During all this time, results have been obtained concerning the nature of the weak photospheric magnetic field of the quiet sun, magneto-acoustic wave propagation, evolution with the cycle of sunspot magnetic fields, photospheric and chromospheric magnetic field in emerging regions, magnetic field in chromospheric structures such as filaments, prominences, flares, and spicules, etc. In this talk, I will review the main results obtained after all these observations and mention the main challenges for the future. With its novel polarization-free design and a complete suite of instruments aimed at simultaneous (imaging and spectroscopic) observations of the solar photosphere and chromosphere, the EST (European Solar Telescope) will represent a major world-wide infrastructure to understand the physical nature of all these phenomena.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.67.1-67.1
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• 2015

In the past two decades, diverse methods and computer codes for reconstruction of coronal magnetic fields have been developed. Some of them can reproduce a known analytic solution quite well when the magnetic field vector is fully specified by the known solution at the domain boundaries. In practical problems, however, we do not know the boundary conditions in the computational domain except the photospheric boundary, where vector magnetogram data are provided. We have developed a new, simple variational method employing vector potentials. We have tested the computational code based on this method for problems with known solutions and those with actual photospheric data. When solutions are fully given at all boundaries, the accuracy of our method is almost comparable to best performing methods in the market. When magnetic field vectors are only given at the photospheric boundary, our method excels other methods in "figures of merit" devised by Schrijver et al. (2006). Our method is expected to contribute to the real time monitoring of the sun required for future space weather prediction.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.187-190
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• 2015

Data analysis and theoretical arguments support magnetic reconnection in a chromospheric current sheet as the mechanism of the observed photospheric magnetic flux cancellation on the Sun. Flux pile-up reconnection in a Sweet–Parker current sheet can explain the observed properties of canceling magnetic features, including the speeds of canceling magnetic fragments, the magnetic fluxes in the fragments, and the flux cancellation rates, inferred from the data. It is discussed how more realistic chromospheric reconnection models can be developed by relaxing the assumptions of a negligible current sheet curvature and a constant height of the reconnection site above the photosphere.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.261-268
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• 2013

Magnetohydrostatic equilibria, in which the Lorentz force, the plasma pressure force and the gravitational force balance out to zero, are widely adopted as the zeroth order states of many astrophysical plasma structures. A magnetic flux-current surface is a surface, in which both magnetic field lines and current lines lie. We for the first time derive the necessary and sufficient condition for existence of magnetic flux-current surfaces in magnetohydrostatic equilibria. It is also shown that the existence of flux-current surfaces is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for the ratio of gravity-aligned components of current density and magnetic field to be constant along each field line. However, its necessary and sufficient condition is found to be very restrictive. This finding gives a significant constraint in modeling solar coronal magnetic fields as force-free fields using photospheric magnetic field observations.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.spc1
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• pp.13-20
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• 2003

Observations have indicated that magnetic reconnect ion may occur frequently in the photosphere and chromosphere as well as in the solar corona. The observed features include cancelling magnetic features seen in photospheric magnetograms, and different kinds of small-scale activities such as UV explosive events and EUV jets. By integrating the observed parameters of these features with the Sweet-Parker reconnect ion theory, an attempt is made to clarify the nature of chromospheric magnetic reconnection. Our results suggest that magnetic reconnect ion may be occurring at many different levels of the photosphere and chromosphere without a preferred height and at a faster speed than is predicted by the Sweet-Parker reconnect ion model using the classical value of electric conductivity. Introducing an anomalous magnetic diffusivity 10-100 times the classical value is one of the possible ways of explaining the fast reconnect ion as inferred from observations.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.spc1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2003

In an early paper Skumanich suggested the existence of a scaling law relating the mean sunspot magnetic field with the square-root of the photospheric pressure. This was derived from an analysis of a variety of theoretical spot models including those by Yun (1968). These were based on the Schliiter-Temesvary (S- T) similarity assumption. To answer criticisms that such modeling may have unphysical (non-axial maxima) solutions, the S-T model was revisited, Moon et al. (1998), with an improved vector potential function. We consider here the consequences of this work for the scaling relation. We show that by dimensionalizing the lateral force balance equation for the S- T model one finds that a single parameter enters as a characteristic value of the solution. This parameter yields Skumanich's scaling directly. Using an observed universal flux-radius relation for dark solar magnetic features (spots and pores) for comparison, we find good to fair agreement with Yun's characteristic value, however the Moon et al. values deviate significantly.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.133-144
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• 2019

We develop forecast models of daily probabilities of major flares (M- and X-class) based on empirical relationships between photospheric magnetic parameters and daily flaring rates from May 2010 to April 2018. In this study, we consider ten magnetic parameters characterizing size, distribution, and non-potentiality of vector magnetic fields from Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)/Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) X-ray flare data. The magnetic parameters are classified into three types: the total unsigned parameters, the total signed parameters, and the mean parameters. We divide the data into two sets chronologically: 70% for training and 30% for testing. The empirical relationships between the parameters and flaring rates are used to predict flare occurrence probabilities for a given magnetic parameter value. Major results of this study are as follows. First, major flare occurrence rates are well correlated with ten parameters having correlation coefficients above 0.85. Second, logarithmic values of flaring rates are well approximated by linear equations. Third, using total unsigned and signed parameters achieved better performance for predicting flares than the mean parameters in terms of verification measures of probabilistic and converted binary forecasts. We conclude that the total quantity of non-potentiality of magnetic fields is crucial for flare forecasting among the magnetic parameters considered in this study. When this model is applied for operational use, it can be used using the data of 21:00 TAI with a slight underestimation of 2-6.3%.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2009

A necessary condition for the formation of a filament is magnetic helicity. In the present paper we seek the origin of magnetic helicity of intermediate filaments. We observed the formation of a sinistral filament at the boundary of a decaying active region using full-disk $H_{\alpha}$ images obtained from Bi Bear Solar Observatory. We have measured the rate of helicity injection during the formation of the filament using full-disk 96 minute-cadence magnetograms taken by SOHO MDI. As a result we found that 1) no significant helicity was injected around the region (polarity inversion line; PIL) of filament formation and 2) negative helicity was injected in the decaying active region. The negative sign of the injected helicity was opposite to that of the filament helicity. On the other hand, at earlier times when the associated active region emerged and grew, positive helicity was intensively injected. Our results suggest that the magnetic helicity of the intermediate filament may have originated from the helicity accumulated during the period of the growth of its associated active region.