The structure of force-free magnetic fields

E. A. Evangelidis, L. L. Vaughan, Gert Botha

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Incontrovertible evidence is presented that the force-free magnetic fields exhibit strong stochastic behavior. Arnold’s solution is given with the associated first integral of energy. A subset of the solution is shown to be non-ergodic whereas the full solution is shown to be ergodic. The first integral of energy is applied to the study of these fields to prove that the equilibrium points of such magnetic configurations are saddle points. Finally, the potential function of the first integral of energy is shown to be a member of the Helmholtz family of solutions. Numerical results corroborate the theoretical conclusions and demonstrate the robustness of the energy integral, which remains constant for arbitrarily long computing times
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)17-32
JournalSolar Physics
Volume193
Issue number1/2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2000

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