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MINI REVIEW article

Front. Astron. Space Sci.
Sec. Space Physics
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fspas.2024.1476498

The Schatten Current Sheet

Provisionally accepted
Kalman Knizhnik Kalman Knizhnik *
  • Naval Research Laboratory, Washington D.C., United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Space weather models endeavoring to connect remote observations to in-situ measurements at various locations in the heliosphere invariably require a coronal model to connect the photosphere magnetically to the inner heliosphere. The most famous and popular implementation of this connection is a potential field source surface (PFSS) model out to the source surface, typically located at 2.5 solar radii, combined with a Schatten current sheet (SCS) model. While the PFSS model is mostly understood, the SCS has been utilized in heliospheric physics for nearly 50 years with little understanding of it's physical and mathematical underpinnings. In this overview article, I lay out the mathematical formalism of the SCS, describe how it differs from the PFSS, and summarize several techniques used to combine the PFSS and SCS to create a global coronal model from the photosphere to the inner heliosphere.

    Keywords: heliosphere, Magnetic Fields, solar corona, electric current, Magnetohydrodynamics - MHD

    Received: 05 Aug 2024; Accepted: 26 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Knizhnik. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Kalman Knizhnik, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington D.C., United States

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