Analysis on correlations between subsurface kinetic helicity and photospheric current helicity in active regions

Abstract

An investigation on correlations between photospheric current helicity and subsurface kinetic helicity is carried out by analyzing vector magnetograms and subsurface velocities for two rapidly developing active regions. The vector magnetograms are from the Solar Dynamics Observatory/Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (SDO/HMI) observed Stokes parameters, and the subsurface velocity is from time-distance data-analysis pipeline using HMI Dopplergrams. Over a span of several days, the evolution of the weighted current helicity shows a tendency similar to that of the weighted subsurface kinetic helicity, attaining a correlation coefficient above 0.60 for both active regions. Additionally, there seems to be a phase lag between the evolutions of the unweighted current and subsurface kinetic helicities for one of the active regions. The good correlation between these two helicities indicates that there is some intrinsic connection between the interior dynamics and photospheric magnetic twistedness inside active regions, which may help to interpret the well-known hemispheric preponderance of current-helicity distribution. © 2012. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.