Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society (천문학회지)

The Korean Astronomical Society (한국천문학회)
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TEMPORAL CHANGE OF MAGNETIC SHEAR FREE FROM THE 180° AMBIGUITY

  • MOON Y.-J. (Big Bear Solar Observatory, NJIT, Korea Astronomy Observatory) ;
  • WANG HAIMIN (Big Bear Solar Observatory, NJIT) ;
  • SPIROCK THOMAS J. (Big Bear Solar Observatory, NJIT) ;
  • PARK Y. D. (Korea Astronomy Observatory)
  • Published : 2002.09.01
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Abstract

In this paper we present a methodology to derive the temporal change of the magnetic shear angle from a series of vector magnetograms, with a high time cadence. This method looks for the minimum change of the shear angle between a pair of magnetograms, free from the $180^{\circ}$ ambiguity, and then accumulates this change over many successive pairs to derive the temporal change of magnetic shear. This methodology will work well if only the successive magnetograms occurred in an active region are well aligned and its helicity sign is reasonably determined. We have applied this methodology to a set of vector magnetograms of NOAA Active Region 9661 on October 19, 2001 by the new digital magnetograph at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO). For this work we considered well aligned magnetograms whose cross-correlation values are larger than 0.95. As a result, we have confirmed the recent report of Wang et al. that there was the abrupt shear change associated with the X1.6 flare. It is also demonstrated that the shear change map can be an useful tool to highlight the local areas that experienced the abrupt shear change. Finally, we suggest that this observation should be a direct support of the emergence of sheared magnetic fields.

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References

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