TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kliem, Bernhard
A1  - Seehafer, Norbert
T1  - Helicity shedding by flux rope ejection
JF  - Astronomy and astrophysics : an international weekly journal
N2  - We quantitatively address the conjecture that magnetic helicity must be shed from the Sun by eruptions launching coronal mass ejections in order to limit its accumulation in each hemisphere. By varying the ratio of guide and strapping field and the flux rope twist in a parametric simulation study of flux rope ejection from approximately marginally stable force-free equilibria, different ratios of self- and mutual helicity are set and the onset of the torus or helical kink instability is obtained. The helicity shed is found to vary over a broad range from a minor to a major part of the initial helicity, with self helicity being largely or completely shed and mutual helicity, which makes up the larger part of the initial helicity, being shed only partly. Torus-unstable configurations with subcritical twist and without a guide field shed up to about two-thirds of the initial helicity, while a highly twisted, kink-unstable configuration sheds only about one-quarter. The parametric study also yields stable force-free flux rope equilibria up to a total flux-normalized helicity of 0.25, with a ratio of self- to total helicity of 0.32 and a ratio of flux rope to external poloidal flux of 0.94. These results numerically demonstrate the conjecture of helicity shedding by coronal mass ejections and provide a first account of its parametric dependence. Both self- and mutual helicity are shed significantly; this reduces the total initial helicity by a fraction of ∼0.4--0.65 for typical source region parameters.
KW  - instabilities
KW  - magnetic fields
KW  - magnetohydrodynamics (MHD)
KW  - Sun
KW  - corona
KW  - coronal mass ejections (CMEs)
KW  - flares
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202142422
SN  - 0004-6361
SN  - 1432-0746
VL  - 659
PB  - EDP Sciences
CY  - Les Ulis
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Liu, Rui
A1  - Kliem, Bernhard
A1  - Titov, Viacheslav S.
A1  - Chen, Jun
A1  - Wang, Yuming
A1  - Wang, Haimin
A1  - Liu, Chang
A1  - Xu, Yan
A1  - Wiegelmann, Thomas
T1  - STRUCTURE, STABILITY, AND EVOLUTION OF MAGNETIC FLUX ROPES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF MAGNETIC TWIST
JF  - The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics
N2  - We investigate the evolution of NOAA Active Region (AR) 11817 during 2013 August 10–12, when it developed a complex field configuration and produced four confined, followed by two eruptive, flares. These C-and-above flares are all associated with a magnetic flux rope (MFR) located along the major polarity inversion line, where shearing and converging photospheric flows are present. Aided by the nonlinear force-free field modeling, we identify the MFR through mapping magnetic connectivities and computing the twist number ${{ \mathcal T }}_{w}$ for each individual field line. The MFR is moderately twisted ($| {{ \mathcal T }}_{w}| \lt 2$) and has a well-defined boundary of high squashing factor Q. We found that the field line with the extremum $| {{ \mathcal T }}_{w}| $ is a reliable proxy of the rope axis, and that the MFR's peak $| {{ \mathcal T }}_{w}| $ temporarily increases within half an hour before each flare while it decreases after the flare peak for both confined and eruptive flares. This pre-flare increase in $| {{ \mathcal T }}_{w}| $ has little effect on the AR's free magnetic energy or any other parameters derived for the whole region, due to its moderate amount and the MFR's relatively small volume, while its decrease after flares is clearly associated with the stepwise decrease in the whole region's free magnetic energy due to the flare. We suggest that ${{ \mathcal T }}_{w}$ may serve as a useful parameter in forewarning the onset of eruption, and therefore, the consequent space weather effects. The helical kink instability is identified as the prime candidate onset mechanism for the considered flares.
KW  - coronal mass ejections (CMEs)
KW  - Sun: corona
KW  - Sun: filaments, pominences
KW  - Sun: flares
KW  - Sun: magnetic fields
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/818/2/148
SN  - 0004-637X
SN  - 1538-4357
VL  - 818
PB  - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY  - Bristol
ER  -