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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