Can equipartition fields produce the tilts of bipolar magnetic regions?

D'Silva, Sydney (1993) Can equipartition fields produce the tilts of bipolar magnetic regions? In: Astrophysical Journal, 407 (1). pp. 385-397.

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Abstract

The effect of turbulence on the nonaxisymmetric flux rings of equipartition field strength in bipolar magnetic regions is studied on the basis of the small-scale momentum exchange mechanism and the giant cell drag combined with the Kelvin-Helmholtz drag mechanism. It is shown that the giant cell drag and small-scale momentum exchange mechanism can make equipartition flux loops emerge at low latitudes, in addition to making them exhibit the observed tilts. However, the sizes of the flux tubes have to be restricted to a couple of hundred kilometers. An ad hoc constraint on the footpoints of the flux loops is introduced by not letting them move in the phi direction, and it is found that equipartition fields of any size can be made to emerge at sunspot latitudes with the observed tilts by suitably adjusting the footpoint separations.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Astrophysical Journal
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to University of Chicago Press.
Department/Centre:	Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics
Date Deposited:	02 Feb 2011 07:08
Last Modified:	02 Feb 2011 07:08
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/35356

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