The cartoon descibes how field-aligned currents in the solar corona can arise in a
"fracture zone", related to magnetic reconnection and flux transfer.
How can these processes not create waves, and how
could they not be energetically important?
This cartoon importantly recognizes this very likely phenomenon by
analogy with the terrestrial aurora.
Basically, the flows leading to the reconnection must distort the field,
thus initiating waves.
The downward Alfvén waves had been described earlier by
Emslie & Sturrock
and feature in the Fletcher-Hudson cartoon.
The cartoon descibes how field-aligned currents in the solar corona can arise in a "fracture zone", related to magnetic reconnection and flux transfer. How can these processes not create waves, and how could they not be energetically important? This cartoon importantly recognizes this very likely phenomenon by analogy with the terrestrial aurora. Basically, the flows leading to the reconnection must distort the field, thus initiating waves. The downward Alfvén waves had been described earlier by Emslie & Sturrock and feature in the Fletcher-Hudson cartoon.