Magnetic winding: what is it and what is it good for?

Prior, Christopher; MacTaggart, David

doi:10.1098/rspa.2020.0483

Magnetic winding: what is it and what is it good for?

Prior, Christopher; MacTaggart, David

Authors

Dr Christopher Prior christopher.prior@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

David MacTaggart

Abstract

Magnetic winding is a fundamental topological quantity that underpins magnetic helicity and measures the entanglement of magnetic field lines. Like magnetic helicity, magnetic winding is also an invariant of ideal magnetohydrodynamics. In this article, we give a detailed description of what magnetic winding describes, how to calculate it and how to interpret it in relation to helicity. We show how magnetic winding provides a clear topological description of magnetic fields (open or closed) and we give examples to show how magnetic winding and helicity can behave differently, thus revealing different and important information about the underlying magnetic field.

Citation

Prior, C., & MacTaggart, D. (2020). Magnetic winding: what is it and what is it good for?. Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 476(2242), Article 20200483. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2020.0483

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Oct 14, 2020
Online Publication Date	Oct 14, 2020
Publication Date	2020
Deposit Date	Nov 12, 2020
Publicly Available Date	Nov 19, 2020
Journal	Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
Print ISSN	1364-5021
Electronic ISSN	1471-2946
Publisher	The Royal Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	476
Issue	2242
Article Number	20200483
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2020.0483