Twist in Weak Magnetic Fields Outside Active Regions and Kinetic Helicity Surrounding Flows

Lead Investigator:
Alexei A. Pevtsov, Department of Physics, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717-3840, pevtsov@physics.montana.edu

Other Team Members:
Richard C. Canfield, Montana State University; Alexander Kosovichev, Phil Scherrer*, Todd Hoeksema*, Xuepu Zhao*, Stanford University; Tom Duvall*, NASA/GSFC; Alan Title*, Ted Tarbell*, Karel Schrijver*, Richard Shine* (LPARL), Tom Berger (Lockheed-Martin Advanced Tech.)

SOI Coordinator:
Alexander Kosovichev

SSSC Lead Programmer:
tbd

Abstract/Technical Summary:

The subject of our interest is newly generated magnetic flux which appears near center of the convective cell. We propose to compare sense of twist of this magnetic field and kinetic helicity of the surrounding convective flows to answer the question: what is role of the photospheric dynamo in generation of this weak magnetic field outside active regions? High resolution MDI magnetograms will be used to derive twist of this magnetic flux, among with time-distance seismology technic to compute kinetic helicity of the photospheric flows.