Astrophysicists find fractal image of Sun's 'Storm Season' imprinted on Solar Wind (Forwarded)

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University of Warwick
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Professor Sandra C. Chapman, Director
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University of Warwick
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Peter Dunn, Press and Media Relations Manager
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24th May 2007

Astrophysicists find fractal image of Sun's 'Storm Season' imprinted on
Solar Wind

Plasma astrophysicists at the University of Warwick have found that key
information about the Sun's 'storm season' is being broadcast across the
solar system in a fractal snapshot imprinted in the solar wind. This
research opens up new ways of looking at both space weather and the unstable
behaviour that affects the operation of fusion powered power plants.

Fractals, mathematical shapes that retain a complex but similar patterns at
different magnifications, are frequently found in nature from snowflakes to
trees and coastlines. Now Plasma Astrophysicists in the University of
Warwick's Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics have devised a new
method to detect the same patterns in the solar wind.

The researchers, led by Professor Sandra Chapman, have also been able to
directly tie these fractal patterns to the Sun's 'storm season'. The Sun
goes through a solar cycle roughly 11 years long. The researchers found the
fractal patterns in the solar wind occur when the Sun was at the peak of
this cycle when the solar corona was at its most active, stormy and complex
-- sunspot activity, solar flares etc. When the corona was quieter no
fractal patterns were found in the solar wind only general turbulence.

This means that fractal signature is coming from the complex magnetic field
of the sun.

This new information will help astrophysicists understand how the solar
corona heats the solar wind and the nature of the turbulence of the Solar
Wind with its implications for cosmic ray flux and space weather.

These techniques used to find and understand the fractal patterns in the
Solar Wind are also being used to assist the quest for fusion power.
Researchers in the University of Warwick's Centre for Fusion, Space and
Astrophysics (CFSA) are collaborating with scientists from the EURATOM/UKAEA
fusion research programme to measure and understand fluctuations in the
world leading fusion experiment MAST (the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak) at
Culham. Controlling plasma fluctuations in tokamaks is important for getting
the best performance out of future fusion power plants.

Notes for Editors:

1. The research by K.Kiyani, S. C. Chapman, B. Hnat, R. M. Nicol, is
entitled "Self-similar signature of the active solar corona within the
inertial range of solar wind turbulence" and was published on May 18th 2007
in Phys. Rev. Lett.

2. The researchers received support and data from STFC (previously PPARC),
EPSRC, and the NASA WIND, ACE and ULYSSES teams.