Rise of Buoyant Magnetic Structures through Convection

Speaker: Bhishek Manek

Jun 14, 2022 11:00 PDT

Magnetic flux transport in the solar interior has been generally studied using idealized (thin, isolated, untwisted, etc.) flux tubes. These idealized flux tubes rise through the solar interior due to magnetic buoyancy, emerging at the solar surface and forming features like sunspots embedded in active regions. A more realistic treatment of these buoyant magnetic flux tubes involves them having a finite size (non-zero cross-section area), field-line twist, and the presence of a large-scale ambient background magnetic field through which they have to rise. Through a series of investigations (Manek, Brummell & Lee, 2018, 2021), it is now well established that the rise dynamics of flux tubes are starkly different when these limitations are addressed. The dynamics are essentially dictated by the relative strength and orientation of the flux tube twist and the large-scale background field. In effect, for a given background field, a particular orientation of twist of flux tubes can rise more easily than the opposite twist. This has surprising implications for our understanding of the observations of the Solar Hemispheric Helicity Rules (SHHR) and its violations. Introducing convection adds another level of realism that can significantly affect the rise dynamics. In this talk, I discuss the rise of twisted magnetic flux structures through convection in the presence of a large-scale background field. Implications of this on SHHR are also examined.


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