Including stereoscopic information in the reconstruction of coronal magnetic fields

Abstract

We present a method to include stereoscopic information about the three dimensional structure of flux tubes into the reconstruction of the coronal magnetic field. Due to the low plasma beta in the corona we can assume a force free magnetic field, with the current density parallel to the magnetic field lines. Here we use linear force free fields for simplicity. The method uses the line of sight magnetic field on the photosphere as observational input. The value of \(\alpha\) is determined iteratively by comparing the reconstructed magnetic field with the observed structures. The final configuration is the optimal linear force solution constrained by both the photospheric magnetogram and the observed plasma structures. As an example we apply our method to SOHO MDI/EIT data of an active region. In the future it is planned to apply the method to analyse data from the SECCHI instrument aboard the STEREO mission.