John Doty wrote:
Differential rotation winds the field up. When the fields get really wound
up and tangled, reconnection becomes more frequent, breaking long tangled
field lines into shorter loops. Solar flares are the result of
reconnection events. If you see them, the field is untangling.

Reconnection comes from resistance, which produces heating. Without dissipation
charged particles cannot cross field lines (actually reversing cause and effect
here; the field lines take into account charged particles not crossing them; their
motion is a current. The prohibition of crossing field lines disappears if the
particle velocities can be interrupted by something other than electrical effects,
like collisions. This produces heating. The sharp turns in the field lines then
can ``drag'' through the particles and become less sharp.)
--
Ron Hardin


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