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The Effect of Limited Spatial Resolution of Stellar Surface Magnetic Field Maps on Magnetohydrodynamic Wind and Coronal X-Ray Emission Models

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Abstract

  • We study the influence of the spatial resolution on scales of 5° and smaller of solar surface magnetic field maps on global magnetohydrodynamic solar wind models, and on a model of coronal heating and X-ray emission. We compare the solutions driven by a low-resolution Wilcox Solar Observatory magnetic map, the same map with spatial resolution artificially increased by a refinement algorithm, and a high-resolution Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Michelson Doppler Imager map. We find that both the wind structure and the X-ray morphology are affected by the fine-scale surface magnetic structure. Moreover, the X-ray morphology is dominated by the closed loop structure between mixed polarities on smaller scales and shows significant changes between high- and low-resolution maps. We conclude that three-dimensional modeling of coronal X-ray emission has greater surface magnetic field spatial resolution requirements than wind modeling, and can be unreliable unless the dominant mixed polarity magnetic flux is properly resolved.

Publication Date

  • 2013

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