RT Journal Article
T1 Ball lightning as a force-free magnetic knot
A1 Fernández-Rañada, Antonio
AB The stability of fireballs in a recent model of ball lightning is studied. It is shown that the balls shine while relaxing in:in almost quiescent expansion, and that three effects contribute to their stability: (i) the formation in each one during a process of Taylor relaxation of a force-free magnetic field, a concept introduced in 1954 in order to explain the existence of large magnetic fields and currents in stable configurations of astrophysical plas,nas; (ii) the so called Alfven conditions in magnetohydrodynamics; and (iii) the approximate conservation of the helicity integral. The force-free fields that appear are termed "knots" because their magnetic lines are closed and linked.
PB American Physical Soc.
SN 1063-651X
YR 2000
FD 2000-11
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/58974
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/58974
LA eng
NO © 2000 The American Physical Society. We are grateful to M. V. Berry, F. Blanco, D. Bouwmeester, D. K. Callebaut, A. Ibort, J. M. Montesinos, S. Singer, A. Tiemblo, and T. Tuomi for suggestions and encouragement.
DS Docta Complutense
RD 28 abr 2025