Issue |
A&A
Volume 475, Number 2, November IV 2007
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 701 - 706 | |
Section | The Sun | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20078244 | |
Published online | 24 September 2007 |
Optimization approach for the computation of magnetohydrostatic coronal equilibria in spherical geometry
1
Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Max-Planck-Strasse 2, 37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany e-mail: wiegelmann@mps.mpg.de
2
School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, KY16 9SS, UK
Received:
9
July
2007
Accepted:
3
September
2007
Context.This paper presents a method which can be used to calculate models of the global solar corona from observational data.
Aims.We present an optimization method for computing nonlinear magnetohydrostatic equilibria in spherical geometry with the aim to obtain self-consistent solutions for the coronal magnetic field, the coronal plasma density and plasma pressure using observational data as input.
Methods. Our code for the self-consistent computation of the coronal magnetic fields and the coronal plasma solves the non-force-free magnetohydrostatic equilibria using an optimization method. Previous versions of the code have been used to compute non-linear force-free coronal magnetic fields from photospheric measurements in Cartesian and spherical geometry, and magnetostatic-equilibria in Cartesian geometry. We test our code with the help of a known analytic 3D equilibrium solution of the magnetohydrostatic equations. The detailed comparison between the numerical calculations and the exact equilibrium solutions is made by using magnetic field line plots, plots of density and pressure and some of the usual quantitative numerical comparison measures.
Results.We find that the method reconstructs the equilibrium accurately, with residual forces of the order of the discretisation error of the analytic solution. The correlation with the reference solution is better than 99.9% and the magnetic energy is computed accurately with an error of <0.1%.
Conclusions.We applied the method so far to an analytic test case. We are planning to use this method with real observational data as input as soon as possible.
Key words: Sun: corona / Sun: magnetic fields / methods: numerical
© ESO, 2007
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.