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Register a new userDynamics of Magnetized Vortex Tubes in the Solar Chromosphere
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We use 3D radiative MHD simulations to investigate the formation and dynamics of small-scale (less than 0.5 Mm in diameter) vortex tubes spontaneously generated by turbulent convection in quiet-Sun regions with initially weak mean magnetic fields. The results show that the vortex tubes penetrate into the chromosphere and substantially affect the structure and dynamics of the solar atmosphere. The vortex tubes are mostly concentrated in intergranular lanes and are characterized by strong (near sonic) downflows and swirling motions that capture and twist magnetic field lines, forming magnetic flux tubes that expand with height and which attain magnetic field strengths ranging from 200 G in the chromosphere to more than 1 kG in the photosphere. We investigate in detail the physical properties of these vortex tubes, including thermodynamic properties, flow dynamics, and kinetic and current helicities, and conclude that magnetized vortex tubes provide an important path for energy and momentum transfer from the convection zone into the chromosphere.
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In this work, a state-of-the-art vortex detection method, Instantaneous Vorticity Deviation, is applied to locate three-dimensional vortex tube boundaries in numerical simulations of solar photospheric magnetoconvection performed by the MURaM code. We detected three-dimensional vortices distributed along intergranular regions and displaying coned shapes that extend from the photosphere to the low chromosphere. Based on a well-defined vortex center and boundary, we were able to determine averaged radial profiles and thereby investigate the dynamics across the vortical flows at different height levels. The solar vortex tubes present nonuniform angular rotational velocity, and, at all height levels, there are eddy viscosity effects within the vortices, which slow down the plasma as it moves toward the center. The vortices impact the magnetic field as they help to intensify the magnetic field at the sinking points, and in turn, the magnetic field ends up playing an essential role in the vortex dynamics. The magnetic field was found to be especially important to the vorticity evolution. On the other hand, it is shown that, in general, kinematic vortices do not give rise to magnetic vortices unless their tangential velocities at different height levels are high enough to overcome the magnetic tension.
Investigation of the turbulent properties of solar convection is extremely important for understanding the multi-scale dynamics observed on the solar surface. In particular, recent high-resolution observations have revealed ubiquitous vortical structures, and numerical simulations have demonstrated links between vortex tube dynamics and magnetic field organization and have shown the importance of vortex tube interactions in the mechanisms of acoustic wave excitation on the Sun. In this paper we investigate the mechanisms of the formation of vortex tubes in highly-turbulent convective flows near the solar surface by using realistic radiative hydrodynamic LES simulations. Analysis of data from the simulations indicates two basic processes of vortex tube formation: 1) development of small-scale convective instability inside convective granules, and 2) a Kelvin-Helmholtz type instability of shearing flows in intergranular lanes. Our analysis shows that vortex stretching during these processes is a primary source of generation of small-scale vorticity on the Sun.
The solar surface is covered by high-speed jets transporting mass and energy into the solar corona and feeding the solar wind. The most prominent of these jets have been known as spicules. However, the mechanism initiating these eruptions events is still unknown. Using realistic numerical simulations we find that small-scale eruptions are produced by ubiquitous magnetized vortex tubes generated by the Suns turbulent convection in subsurface layers. The swirling vortex tubes (resembling tornadoes) penetrate into the solar atmosphere, capture and stretch background magnetic field, and push surrounding material up, generating quasiperiodic shocks. Our simulations reveal a complicated high-speed flow patterns, and thermodynamic and magnetic structure in the erupting vortex tubes. We found that the eruptions are initiated in the subsurface layers and are driven by the high-pressure gradients in the subphotosphere and photosphere, and by the Lorentz force in the higher atmosphere layers.
In this paper, we study the heating of the magnetized solar chromosphere induced by the large fraction of neutral atoms present in this layer. The presence of neutrals, together with the decrease with height of the collisional coupling, leads to deviations from the classical MHD behavior of the chromospheric plasma. A relative net motion appears between the neutral and ionized components, usually referred to as ambipolar diffusion. The dissipation of currents in the chromosphere is enhanced orders of magnitude due to the action of ambipolar diffusion, as compared to the standard ohmic diffusion. We propose that a significant amount of magnetic energy can be released to the chromosphere just by existing force-free 10--40 G magnetic fields there. As a consequence, we conclude that ambipolar diffusion is an important process that should be included in chromospheric heating models, as it has the potential to rapidly heat the chromosphere. We perform analytical estimations and numerical simulations to prove this idea.
Solar chromosphere consists of a partially ionized plasma, which makes modeling the solar chromosphere a particularly challenging numerical task. Here we numerically model chromospheric waves using a two-fluid approach with a newly developed numerical code. The code solves two-fluid equations of conservation of mass, momentum and energy, together with the induction equation, for the case of the purely hydrogen plasma with collisional coupling between the charged and neutral fluid components. The implementation of a semi-implicit algorithm allows us to overcome the numerical stability constraints due to the stiff collisional terms. We test the code against analytical solutions of acoustic and Alfven wave propagation in uniform medium in several regimes of collisional coupling.The results of our simulations are consistent with the analytical estimates, and with other results described in the literature. In the limit of a large collisional frequency, the waves propagate with a common speed of a single fluid. In the other limit of a vanishingly small collisional frequency, the Alfven waves propagate with an Alfven speed of the charged fluid only, while the perturbation in neutral fluid is very small. The acoustic waves in these limits propagate with the sound speed corresponding to either the charges or the neutrals, while the perturbation in the other fluid component is very small. Otherwise, when the collision frequency is similar to the real part of the wave frequency, the interaction between charges and neutrals through momentum transfer collisions cause alterations of the waves frequencies and damping of the wave amplitudes.
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