The Structure and Dynamics of the Corona Heliosphere Connection

The essential building block of the "S-Web" (the pattern of separatrices) that must connect the lower solar atmosphere magnetically into the rather simple structure of the solar wind. The physics here lies hidden in the breaking of the singular behavior of magnetic connectivity within a quasi-separatrix layer, or rather a whole network of them. It is truly remarkable how complicated the magnetic field at the base of the corona can be, whereas the basic nature of the solar-wind field has a dominantly bipolar character. The cartoon here shows two like-polarity coronal hole patches connected by the thin corridor theoretically required to ensure the simplification of the mapping.