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Twist and connectivity of magnetic field lines in the flare-productive active region NOAA 10930 are investigated in terms of the vector magnetograms observed by the Solar Optical Telescope on board the Hinode satellite and the nonlinear force-free field (NLFFF) extrapolation. First, we show that the footpoints of magnetic field lines reconstructed by the NLFFF correspond well to the conjugate pair of highly sheared flare ribbons on the Ca n images, which were observed by Hinode as an X3.4 class flare on 2006 December 13. This demonstrates that the NLFFF extrapolation may be used to analyze the magnetic field connectivity. Second, we find that the twist of magnetic field lines anchored on the flare ribbons increased as the ribbons moved away from the magnetic polarity inversion line in the early phase of the flare. This suggests that magnetic reconnection might commence from a region located below the most strongly twisted field. Third, we reveal that the magnetic flux twisted more than a half turn and gradually increased during the last one day prior to the onset of the flare, and that it quickly decreased for two hours after the flare. This is consistent with the store-and-release scenario of magnetic helicity. However, within this active region, only a small fraction of the flux was twisted by more than one full turn and the field lines that reconnected first were twisted less than one turn. These results imply that the kink mode instability could hardly occur, at least before the onset of flare. Based on our results, we discuss the trigger process of solar flares. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Active region magnetic flux that emerges to the photosphere from below will show complexity in the structure, with many small-scale fragmented features appearing in between the main bipole and then disappearing. Some fragments seen will be absorbed into the main polarities and others seem to cancel with opposite magnetic field. In this paper we investigate the response of the corona to the behaviour of these small fragments and whether energy through reconnection will be transported into the corona. In order to investigate this we analyse data from the Hinode space mission during flux emergence on 1 – 2 December 2006. At the initial stages of flux emergence several small-scale enhancements (of only a few pixels size) are seen in the coronal line widths and diffuse coronal emission exists. The magnetic flux emerges as a fragmented structure, and coronal loops appear above these structures or close to them. These loops are large-scale structures – most small-scale features predominantly stay within the chromosphere or at the edges of the flux emergence. The most distinctive feature in the Doppler velocity is a strong ring of coronal outflows around the edge of the emerging flux region on the eastern side which is either due to reconnection or compression of the structure. This feature lasts for many hours and is seen in many wavelengths. We discuss the implications of this feature in terms of the onset of persistent outflows from an active region that could contribute to the slow solar wind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We performed a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation using a nonlinear force-free field (NLFFF) in solar active region 11158 to clarify the dynamics of an X2.2-class solar flare. We found that the NLFFF never shows the dramatic dynamics seen in observations, i.e., it is in a stable state against the perturbations. On the other hand, the MHD simulation shows that when the strongly twisted lines are formed at close to the neutral line, which are produced via tether-cutting reconnection in the twisted lines of the NLFFF, they consequently erupt away from the solar surface via the complicated reconnection. This result supports the argument that the strongly twisted lines formed in NLFFF via tether-cutting reconnection are responsible for breaking the force balance condition of the magnetic fields in the lower solar corona. In addition to this, the dynamical evolution of these field lines reveals that at the initial stage the spatial pattern of the footpoints caused by the reconnection of the twisted lines appropriately maps the distribution of the observed two-ribbon flares. Interestingly, after the flare, the reconnected field lines convert into a structure like the post-flare loops, which is analogous to the extreme ultraviolet image taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Eventually, we found that the twisted lines exceed a critical height at which the flux tube becomes unstable to the torus instability. These results illustrate the reliability of our simulation and also provide an important relationship between flare and coronal mass ejection dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the temporal evolution of the three-dimensional magnetic structure of the flaring active region (AR) NOAA 10930 by using the nonlinear force-free fields extrapolated from the photospheric vector magnetic fields observed by the Solar Optical Telescope on board Hinode. This AR consisted mainly of two types of twisted magnetic field lines: one has a strong negative (left-handed) twist due to the counterclockwise motion of the positive sunspot and is rooted in the regions of both polarities in the sunspot at a considerable distance from the polarity inversion line (PIL). In the flare phase, dramatic magnetic reconnection occurs in those negatively twisted lines in which the absolute value of the twist is greater than a half-turn. The other type consists of both positively and negatively twisted field lines formed relatively close to the PIL between two sunspots. A strong Ca II image began to brighten in this region of mixed polarity, in which the positively twisted field lines were found to be injected within one day across the pre-existing negatively twisted region, along which strong currents were embedded. Consequently, the central region near the PIL contains a mix of differently twisted field lines and the strong currents may play a prominent role in flare onset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence process of the magnetic field into the solar atmosphere plays an essential role in determining the configuration of the magnetic field and its activity on the Sun. This paper focuses on how much the magnetic flux contained by a flux tube emerges into the solar atmosphere, which is the key to understanding the physical mechanism of solar eruptions. By comparing a kinematic model of an emerging flux tube to a series of magnetohydrodynamic simulations, we derive the characteristics of the emergence process, showing how the process depends on the pre-emerged state of the magnetic field such as the radius of a flux tube, field strength, field-line twist, and wavelength of undulation assumed by the flux tube. We also discuss the relationship between magnetic configurations and their stability on the Sun. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]