Explaining the Hemispheric Pattern of Filament Chirality.

Solar filaments are known to exhibit a hemispheric pattern in their chirality, where dextral/sinistral filaments dominate in the northern/southern hemisphere. We show that this pattern may be explained through data driven 3D global magnetic field simulations of the Sun's large-scale magnetic field. Through a detailed comparison with 109 filaments over a 6 month period, the model correctly reproduces the filament chirality and helicity with a 96% agreement. The data driven simulation is extended to run over a full solar cycle, where predictions are made for the spatial and temporal dependence of the hemispheric pattern over the solar cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]