The Low Jitter Trigger for the 11 Years Solar Half-Cycle

Abstract:

The heliosphere appears to be powered by coaxial helicity injection from a negative helicity injector in the northern hemisphere and a positive one in the southern [T. R. Jarboe, T. E. Benedett, C. J. Everson, C. J. Hansen, A. C. Hossack, K. D. Morgan, B. A. Nelson, J. B. O'Bryan, J. M. Penna, and D. A. Sutherland, The nature and source of solar magnetic phenomena, Physics of Plasmas 26, 092902 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5087613]. The injector flux for both is the measured solar polar flux and the injector voltage is generated by the differential rotation of the solar surface in the polar flux. The dynamo current (I) is parallel to the solar flux (f) and estimated from the amplitude of the torsional oscillation that it drives. This current sustains a thin (0.1 -0.3 Mm thick) shallow (1.0 Mm deep) 1D minimum energy state that has the magnetic field (B) parallel to the surface and rotates with radius at the rate k = u_oI/f. The thickness grows from π/2 radians of rotation to 3π/2 rotation due to diffusion into the resistive flux-conserving boundary that is defined by the high-speed flow of unmagnetized solar plasma. The eleven years is set by the depth where the starting flux position is the same as the previous cycle. At 3π/2 the negative buoyance of the bottom π/2 cannot balance the positive buoyance of the top π because cross-stitching between them is not present at that instance.