Interplanetary magnetic field

(IMF)
• The photospheric magnetic field was discovered by Hale in 1902.
• The splitting of spectral lines due to the Zeeman effect suggest a photospheric
field in the order of 10−4 Tesla or 1 Gauss outside and 3000 g to 4000 G inside
sunspots.
• The sun’s magnetic field, that is carried out into interplanetary space is called
the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF).
• The IMF is a part of the Sun’s magnetic field that is carried into interplanetary
space by the solar wind.
• The interplanetary field lines are frozen in the plasma.
• Because of the Sun’s rotation, the IMF like the solar wind travels out in a spiral
pattern. This can be compared to the pattern of water sprayed from a rotating
lawn sprinkler.
• The winding up of the magnetic field is named parker spiral after the scientist
who first described this.
• Thus with increasing radial distance, the originally radial magnetic field becomes
more and more toroidal.
• As the solar wind expands, its density decreases as the inverse of the square of
its distance from the Sun.
• At some large enough distance from the Sun (at heliopause), the solar wind can
no longer ‘push back’ the fields and particles of the local interstellar medium
and the solar wind slows down from 400 km/sec to perhaps 20 km/sec.
• The IMF originates in regions on the Sun where the magnetic field is ‘open’ that
is, where field lines emerging from one region do not return to a conjugate
region but extend virtually indefinitely into space.
• The direction of the field in the Sun’s northern hemisphere is opposite that of
the field in the southern hemisphere.
• Along the plane of the Sun’s magnetic equator, the oppositely directed open
field lines run parallel to each other and are separated by a thin current sheet
known as the “Interplanetary Current Sheet” or “Heliospheric Current Sheet”.
• The rotational axis and the magnetic axis of the Sun do not coincide. Therefore
the current sheet becomes tilted and shows a wavy-like structure as it extends
into interplanetary space.
• Therefore, the earth is located sometimes below and sometimes above the
rotating current sheet and it experiences periodic changes in the polarity of the
IMF.
• These periods of alternating positive and negative polarity are known as
magnetic sectors.
• The IMF is a vector quantity with 3-directional components, the 2-components
𝐵𝑥 , 𝐵𝑦 are oriented parallel to the ecliptic. The 𝐵𝑧 component is perpendicular
to the ecliptic. It is created by disturbances in the solar wind.
• When the IMF and geomagnetic field lines are oriented anti-parallel to each
other, they can reconnect or merge.
• By this process energy, mass and momentum can be transferred from the IMF,
solar wind, to the geomagnetic field, the strongest coupling occurs when 𝐵𝑧 is
oriented southward.
• Generally, the strength of the IMF near earth is between 1-37 nT and the
average is ~ 6nT.