Descripción: Context. Magnetic clouds (MCs) are formed by magnetic flux ropes that are ejected from the Sun as coronal mass ejections. These structures generally have low plasma beta and travel through the interplanetary medium interacting with the surrounding solar wind. Thus, the dynamical evolution of the internal magnetic structure of a MC is a consequence of both the conditions of its environment and of its own dynamical laws, which are mainly dominated by magnetic forces.Aims. With in-situ observations the magnetic field is only measured along the trajectory of the spacecraft across the MC. Therefore, a magnetic model is needed to reconstruct the magnetic configuration of the encountered MC. The main aim of the present work is to extend the widely used cylindrical model to arbitrary cross-section shapes.Methods. The flux rope boundary is parametrized to account for a broad range of shapes. Then, the internal structure of the flux rope is computed by expressing the magnetic field as a series of modes of a linear force-free field.Results. We analyze the magnetic field profile along straight cuts through the flux rope, in order to simulate the spacecraft crossing through a MC. We find that the magnetic field orientation is only weakly affected by the shape of the MC boundary. Therefore, the MC axis can approximately be found by the typical methods previously used (e.g., minimum variance). The boundary shape affects the magnetic field strength most. The measurement of how much the field strength peaks along the crossing provides an estimation of the aspect ratio of the flux-rope cross-section. The asymmetry of the field strength between the front and the back of the MC, after correcting for the time evolution (i.e., its aging during the observation of the MC), provides an estimation of the cross-section global bending. A flat or/and bent cross-section requires a large anisotropy of the total pressure imposed at the MC boundary by the surrounding medium.Conclusions. The new theoretical model developed here relaxes the cylindrical symmetry hypothesis. It is designed to estimate the cross-section shape of the flux rope using the in-situ data of one spacecraft. This allows a more accurate determination of the global quantities, such as magnetic fluxes and helicity. These quantities are especially important for both linking an observed MC to its solar source and for understanding the corresponding evolution. © 2009 ESO.

Descripción: Aims. We study the stability and modes of non - isothermal coronal loop models with different intensity values of equilibrium twisted magnetic field.Methods. We use an energy principle obtained by means of non - equilibrium thermodynamic arguments. The principle is expressed in terms of Hermitian operators and enables us to consider the coupled system of equations, the balance of energy equation and the equation of motion, to obtain modes and eigenmodes in a spectrum ranging from short to long-wavelength disturbances without using weak varying approximations of the equilibrium parameters. Long-wavelength perturbations introduce additional difficulties because the inhomogeneous nature of the medium produce disturbances corresponding to continuous intervals of eigenfrequencies, which cannot be considered as purely sinusoidal.Results. We analyze the modification of periods, modes structure, and stability when the helicity, the magnetic field strength, and the radius of the fluxtube are varied. The efficiency of the damping due to the resonant absorption mechanism is analyzed in terms of modes that can either impulsively release or store magnetic energy.Conclusions. We find that the onset of the instability is associated with a critical value of the helicity and the magnetic energy content has a determinant role on the instability of the system with respect to the stabilizing effect of the resonant absorption mechanism. © 2008 ESO.

Descripción: In the present work, we studied the efficiency of a magnetic island filter for two vacuum arc designs, pulsed and continuous. The magnetic island filter consisted in a straight duct with an external solenoid and a magnet enclosed in a housing (magnetic island) located inside the duct on its axis, and both magnetic fields are in opposite direction. The housing of the magnetic island obstructs the line of sight between the cathode and the substrate. In this arrangement, the charged plasma components move along the curved magnetic field lines, around the magnetic island, but the macroparticles move in straight paths and deposit on the wall of the magnetic island housing. The performance of the filter was characterized for different external and internal field strengths. The plasma transport efficiency was analyzed by measuring the ion saturation current with Langmuir probes and the deposited mass rate. The ion transmission efficiency around the system axis achieved values around 25%. Observation of the coating surface morphology with optical microscopy determined that the macroparticles were effectively removed.