Lifetime, age, and rotation of coronal magnetic fields

✍ Scribed by Gary D. Parker

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 673 KB
• Volume: 104
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0038-0938
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00159086

✦ Synopsis

The rotation of the solar electron corona is determined for intervals when nearly periodic variations dominated the polarization brightness record during 1964-1976. Coronal rotation rates derived for 765 intervals vary with height, latitude, and interval length. These rotation rates show a decrease of differential rotation with height and support earlier rotation studies which included much less stationary data. Analyses of the selected intervals and autocorrelation of the complete K-coronameter data set give quantitative estimates of the rotational effects of magnetic tracer age and lifetime. The principal effects detected are a relatively fast rotation of very long-lived tracers at high latitude and a relatively fast rotation of very short-lived tracers at low latitudes. The observations indicate that high-to-low latitude magnetic connections extending through the corona speed up rotation at high latitudes and retard it at low latitudes.