The origin of the solar magnetic cycle

After summarizing the relevant observational data, we discuss how a study of flux tube dynamics in the solar convection zone helps us to understand the formation of sunspots. Then we introduce the flux transport dynamo model and assess its success in modelling both the solar cycle and its departures from strictly periodic behaviour.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures, Proceedings of Chandrasekhar Centenary Conferenc

A Critical Assessment of the Flux Transport Dynamo

We first discuss how the flux transport dynamo with reasonably high diffusion can explain both the regular and the irregular features of the solar cycle quite well. Then we critically examine the inadequacies of the model and the challenge posed by some recent observational data about meridional circulation, arriving at the conclusion that this model can still work within the bounds of observational dataComment: 11 pages, 2 figures, Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics (invited article for the special issue "MHD Waves and Dynamical Processes in the Magnetised Solar and Space Plasmas"

Theoretical modelling of the fine structures in sunspots

Until a decade ago most solar physicists thought of a sunspot as the upper end of a giant flux tube floating vertically. The existence of umbral dots and penumbral grains has been known for several decades. On the basis of available observations, they seem to be regions of photospheric intensity with upflowing gas motion and magnetic fields much weaker than in the surrounding sunspot surface. It has also been suggested that the differences in the appearances of umbral dots and granular cells are caused by the highly nonlinear nature of the convection problem in the presense of strong magnetic fields. The main ideas are presented here without any equations. It can be shown that a pocket of field free gas surrounded by a vertical magnetic field in the presence of gravity takes up the shape of a tapering column ending at a vertex at the top. Some convection is expected to take place in the trapped field free gas, whereas the magnetic field around it makes those regions stable against convection. Eventually the apex of the tapering column reaches the photospheric surface where the bulging of the magnetic field makes the field no longer able to close on the field free gas and trap it underneath

Magnetic helicity as a constraint on coronal dissipation

The Taylor hypothesis has provided a model for the relaxed magnetic configurations of not only laboratory plasmas, but also of astrophysical plasmas. However, energy dissipation is possible only for systems which depart from a strict Taylor state, and hence a parameter describing that departure must be introduced, when the Taylor hypothesis is used to estimate the dissipation. An application of the Taylor hypothesis to the problem of coronal heating provides an insight into this difficult problem. When particular sorts of footpoint motions put energy and helicity in the corona, the conservation of helicity puts a constraint on how much of the energy can be dissipated. However, on considering a random distribution of footpoint motions, this constraint gets washed away, and the Taylor hypothesis is probably not going to play any significant role in the actual calculation of relevant physical quantities in the coronal heating problem