Response of Solar Wind on Extreme Solar Activity

Abstract

We investigate how the mass loss by the solar wind depends on the solar activity levels, particularly focusing on the solar wind during extremely high activity. We perform forward-type magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) numerical experiments for Alfvén wave-driven solar winds with a wide range of the input Poynting flux from the photosphere. Increasing the magnetic field strength and the turbulent velocity at the solar photosphere from the current solar level, the mass loss rate rapidly increases at first owing to the suppression of the reflection of the Alfvén waves. The surface materials are lifted up by the magnetic pressure associated with the Alfvén waves, and the cool dense chromosphere is extended to ∼ 10% of the stellar radius. The dense atmospheres enhance the radiative losses and eventually most of the input Poynting energy from the surface escapes by the radiation. As a result, there is no more sufficient energy remained for the kinetic energy of the wind; the solar wind saturates for the extreme activity level, as observed in Wood et al. The saturation level is positively correlated with the average magnetic field strength contributed from open flux tubes. If the field strength is a few times larger than the present level, the mass loss rate could be as high as 1000 times.