Dipole model of the Earth's magnetic field

About: Dipole model of the Earth's magnetic field is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2756 publications have been published within this topic receiving 83021 citations.

The influences of solar wind pressure and interplanetary magnetic field on global magnetic field and outer radiation belt electrons

Abstract: Using the Van Allen Probe in situ measured magnetic field and electron data, we examine the solar wind dynamic pressure and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) effects on global magnetic field and outer radiation belt relativistic electrons (≥1.8 MeV). The dynamic pressure enhancements (>2 nPa) cause the dayside magnetic field increase and the nightside magnetic field reduction, whereas the large southward IMFs (Bz-IMF 4), the pitch angles of relativistic electrons are mainly pancake distributions with a flux peak around 90° (corresponding anisotropic index A > 0.1), and the higher-energy electrons have stronger pancake distributions (the larger A), suggesting that the compression-induced betatron accelerations enhance the dayside pancake distributions. However, in the nighttime decreased magnetic field region (MLT ~ 18:00–06:00, and L ≥ 5), the pitch angles of relativistic electrons become butterfly distributions with two flux peaks around 45° and 135° (A < 0). The spatial range of the nighttime butterfly distributions is almost independent of the relativistic electron energy, but it depends on the magnetic field day-night asymmetry and the interplanetary conditions. Themore » dynamic pressure enhancements can make the nighttime butterfly distribution extend inward. The large southward IMFs can also lead to the azimuthal expansion of the nighttime butterfly distributions. As a result, these variations are consistent with the drift shell splitting and/or magnetopause shadowing effect.« less

Full-disk nonlinear force-free field extrapolation of SDO/HMI and SOLIS/VSM magnetograms

Abstract: Context. The magnetic field configuration is essential for understanding solar explosive phenomena, such as flares and coronal mass ejections. To overcome the unavailability of coronal magnetic field measurements, photospheric magnetic field vector data can be used to reconstruct the coronal field. Two complications of this approach are that the measured photospheric magnetic field is not force-free and that one has to apply a preprocessing routine to achieve boundary conditions suitable for the force-free modeling. Furthermore the nonlinear force-free extrapolation code should take uncertainties into account in the photospheric field data. They occur due to noise, incomplete inversions, or azimuth ambiguity-removing techniques. Aims. Extrapolation codes in Cartesian geometry for modeling the magnetic field in the corona do not take the curvature of the Sun’s surface into account and can only be applied to relatively small areas, e.g., a single active region. Here we apply a method for nonlinear force-free coronal magnetic field modeling and preprocessing of photospheric vector magnetograms in spherical geometry using the optimization procedure to full disk vector magnetograms. We compare the analysis of the photospheric magnetic field and subsequent force-free modeling based on full-disk vector maps from Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) onboard the solar dynamics observatory (SDO) and Vector Spectromagnetograph (VSM) of the Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun (SOLIS). Methods. We used HMI and VSM photospheric magnetic field measurements to model the force-free coronal field above multiple solar active regions, assuming magnetic forces to dominate. We solved the nonlinear force-free field equations by minimizing a functional in spherical coordinates over a full disk and excluding the poles. After searching for the optimum modeling parameters for the particular data sets, we compared the resulting nonlinear force-free model fields. We compared quantities, such as the total magnetic energy content, free magnetic energy, the longitudinal distribution of the magnetic pressure, and surface electric current density, using our spherical geometry extrapolation code. Results. The magnetic field lines obtained from nonlinear force-free extrapolation based on HMI and VSM data show good agreement. However, the nonlinear force-free extrapolation based on HMI data contain more total magnetic energy, free magnetic energy, the longitudinal distribution of the magnetic pressure, and surface electric current density than do the VSM data.

Transient Signals from a Buried Magnetic Dipole

Abstract: The solution for a pulse‐excited magnetic dipole is carried through for a conducting half‐space model of the earth. All displacement currents are neglected so the solution is not valid at very small times in the transient response. It is shown that the waveforms of the magnetic field components on the surface depend both on the conductivity of the earth and the geometrical parameters of the problem. The results have possible application to electromagnetic signaling and direction finding for a buried source.