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r6 - 23 Jun 2005 - 11:39:31 - MikeSmith

PFSS Magnetic Extrapolation method

This section describes the Magnetic Extrapolation algorithm steps of the IDL Solarsoft 'PFSS' package created by Dr Marc deRosa at LMSAL. A complete list of the files in the PFSS package can be viewed at: http://orpheus.nascom.nasa.gov /~zarro/xdoc (search on 'pfss'). References: 1. Photospheric and Heliospheric Magnetic Fields - Carolus J Schrijver and Marc L deRosa. For a mathematical analysis of the algorithm used, refer to Appendix C. 'Source-Surface Model' of Ref 1.

Compute spherical harmonic coefficients of field potential (Phi) from input Magnetogram
1. Read in Magnetogram 2. Compute Spherical Harmonic Transform on 2-D input arrays Setup integration weights. Apply Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to the array. Next, apply Legendre transform. The output corresponds to term Fm l of Ref 1. 3. Compute terms Am l and Bm l, corresponding to Eqn (8) of Ref 1.

Compute the potential magnetic field components Br, Bth and Bphi.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Compute Br in r,l,m space. Convert to spherical coordinates using inverse spherical transform. See Eqn (9) Ref 1. Compute Br in r,l,m space. Convert to spherical coordinates using inverse spherical transform. See Eqn (10) Ref 1. Compute Br in r,l,m space. Convert to spherical coordinates using inverse spherical transform. See Eqn (11) Ref 1.

Perform field line extrapolation and compute coronal hole footprint.

1. Calculate gridpoints from which to start tracing magnetic field lines. Compute field start coordinates - source surface inward. Setup grid type [simple, random lon, random lat/lon, file, uniform, flux weighted]. Perform interpolation on input array. Compute field start coordinates - photosphere outward. Setup grid type simple, random lon, random lat/lon, file, uniform flux weighted. Perform interpolation on input array to derive Br of start points. Combine both sets of coordinates. 2. Begin field tracing

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Friday 21 October 2011 12:14 PM