From the observed vector magnetic fields by the Solar Optical Telescope/ Spectro-Polarimeter aboard the satellite Hinode, we have examined whether or not the quiet Sun magnetic fields are non-potential, and how the G-band filigrees and Ca II network bright points （NBPs） are associated with the magnetic non-potentiality. A sizable quiet region in the disk center is selected for this study. The new findings by the study are as follows. （1） The magnetic fields of the quiet region are obviously non-potential. The region-average shear angle is 40°, the average vertical current is 0.016A m^-2, and the average free magnetic energy density, 2.7× 10^2erg cm^-3. The magnitude of these non-potential quantities is comparable to that in solar active regions. （2） There are overall correlations among current helicity, free magnetic energy and longitudinal fields. The magnetic non-potentiality is mostly concentrated in the close vicinity of network elements which have stronger longitudinal fields. （3） The filigrees and NBPs are magnetically characterized by strong longitudinal fields, large electric helicity, and high free energy density. Because the selected region is away from any enhanced network, these new results can generally be applied to the quiet Sun. The findings imply that stronger network elements play a role in high magnetic non-potentiality in heating the solar atmosphere and in conducting the solar wind.
Meng Zhao Jing-Xiu Wang Chun-Lan Jin Gui-Ping Zhou
The prediction for the smoothed monthly mean sunspot numbers (hereafter SMSNs) of solar cycle 23, which was given with a similar cycle method proposed by us at the beginning time of cycle 23, is analyzed and verified in this paper. Using our predicted maximum SMSN and the ascending length for solar cycle 24, and as- suming their relative errors to be respectively 20% and ± 7 months, solar cycles 2, 4, 8, 11, 17, 20 and 23 are selected to be the similar cycles to cycle 24. The selected solar cycles are divided into two groups. The first group consists of all the selected cycles; while the second group consists of only cycles 11, 17, 20 and 23. Two SMSN time profiles then may be obtained, respectively, for the two similar cycle groups. No significant difference is found between the two predicted time profiles. Consid- ering the latest observed sunspot number so far available for cycle 23 and the pre- dictions for the minimum SMSN of cycle 24, a date calibration is done for the ob- tained time profiles, and thus, SMSNs for 127 months of cycle 24, from October 2007 to April 2018, are predicted.
WANG JiaLongMIAO JuanLIU SiQingGONG JianCunZHU CuiLian
We analyzed the correlation of the solar magnetograms and Dopplergrams from SOHO/MDI and SDO/HMI respectively. It is found that the full disk correlation coefficient of Dopplergrams is more than 0.80 between SOHO/MDI and SDO/HMI. The full disk correlation coefficient of magnetograms is about 0.73 and is more than 0.95 for active regions only. We also analyzed the distribution of the cross helicity （velocity-magnetic-field correlation） on the solar surface. It is found that the latitude distributions of the cross helicity based on SOHO/MDI data and SDO/HMI data have similar tendencies, and in the analysis of solar active regions the amplitude of the horizontal component of the mean cross helicity is about two times the line-of-sight one.
Ever since the magnetohydrodynamic （MHD） method for extrapolation of the solar coronal magnetic field was first developed to study the dynamic evolution of twisted magnetic flux tubes, it has proven to be efficient in the reconstruction of the solar coronal magnetic field. A recent example is the so-called data-driven simu- lation method （DDSM）, which has been demonstrated to be valid by an application to model analytic solutions such as a force-free equilibrium given by Low and Lou. We use DDSM for the observed magnetograms to reconstruct the magnetic field above an active region. To avoid an unnecessary sensitivity to boundary conditions, we use a classical total variation diminishing Lax-Friedrichs formulation to iteratively compute the full MHD equations. In order to incorporate a magnetogram consistently and sta- bly, the bottom boundary conditions are derived from the characteristic method. In our simulation, we change the tangential fields continually from an initial potential field to the vector magnetogram. In the relaxation, the initial potential field is changed to a nonlinear magnetic field until the MHD equilibrium state is reached. Such a stable equilibrium is expected to be able to represent the solar atmosphere at a specified time. By inputting the magnetograms before and after the X3.4 flare that occurred on 2006 December 13, we find a topological change after comparing the magnetic field before and after the flare. Some discussions are given regarding the change of magnetic con- figuration and current distribution. Furthermore, we compare the reconstructed field line configuration with the coronal loop observations by XRT onboard Hinode. The comparison shows a relatively good correlation.
In this paper we will summarize the progress in the development of the Chinese Space Solar Telescope (SST) during the past few years. The main scientific objective of SST is to observe the fundamental structure of solar magnetic field with its 1-m optical telescope. The success of 1-m Swedish Solar Telescope and Hinode underscores the importance of this 1-m space telescope. In addition, some key technical problems have been solved.
Three new longitudinal magnetic field parameters are extracted from SOHO/MDI magnetograms to characterize properties of the stressed magnetic field in active regions, and their flare productivities are calculated for 1055 active regions. We find that the proposed parameters can be used to distinguish flaring samples from non-flaring samples. Using the long-term accumulated MDI data, we build the solar flare prediction model by using a data mining method. Furthermore, the decision boundary, which is used to divide flaring from non-flaring samples, is determined by the decision tree algorithm. Finally, the performance of the prediction model is evaluated by 10-fold cross validation technology. We conclude that an efficient solar flare prediction model can be built by the proposed longitudinal magnetic field parameters with the data mining method.
