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Investigating the Efficacy of Topologically Derived Time Series for Flare Forecasting. I. Data Set Preparation (2025)
Journal Article
Williams, T., Prior, C. B., & MacTaggart, D. (2025). Investigating the Efficacy of Topologically Derived Time Series for Flare Forecasting. I. Data Set Preparation. The Astrophysical Journal, 980(1), Article 102. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ada600

The accurate forecasting of solar flares is considered a key goal within the solar physics and space weather communities. There is significant potential for flare prediction to be improved by incorporating topological fluxes of magnetogram data sets,... Read More about Investigating the Efficacy of Topologically Derived Time Series for Flare Forecasting. I. Data Set Preparation.

The SKMT Algorithm: A method for assessing and comparing underlying protein entanglement (2023)
Journal Article
Bale, A., Rambo, R., & Prior, C. (2023). The SKMT Algorithm: A method for assessing and comparing underlying protein entanglement. PLoS Computational Biology, 19(11), Article e1011248. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011248

We present fast and simple-to-implement measures of the entanglement of protein tertiary structures which are appropriate for highly flexible structure comparison. These are performed using the SKMT algorithm, a novel method of smoothing the Cα backb... Read More about The SKMT Algorithm: A method for assessing and comparing underlying protein entanglement.

Deciphering the Pre–solar-storm Features of the 2017 September Storm From Global and Local Dynamics (2023)
Journal Article
Raphaldini, B., Dikpati, M., Norton, A. A., Teruya, A. S. W., McIntosh, S. W., Prior, C. B., & MacTaggart, D. (2023). Deciphering the Pre–solar-storm Features of the 2017 September Storm From Global and Local Dynamics. Astrophysical Journal, 958(2), Article 175. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/acfef0

We investigate whether global toroid patterns and the local magnetic field topology of solar active region (AR) 12673 together can hindcast the occurrence of the biggest X-flares of solar cycle (SC)-24. Magnetic toroid patterns (narrow latitude belts... Read More about Deciphering the Pre–solar-storm Features of the 2017 September Storm From Global and Local Dynamics.

Computation of Winding-Based Magnetic Helicity and Magnetic Winding Density for SHARP Magnetograms in Spherical Coordinates (2023)
Journal Article
Xiao, D., Prior, C. B., & Yeates, A. R. (2023). Computation of Winding-Based Magnetic Helicity and Magnetic Winding Density for SHARP Magnetograms in Spherical Coordinates. Solar Physics, 298(10), Article 116. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-023-02211-9

Magnetic helicity has been used widely in the analysis and modelling of solar active regions. However, it is difficult to evaluate and interpret helicity in spherical geometry since coronal magnetic fields are rooted in the photosphere and helicity i... Read More about Computation of Winding-Based Magnetic Helicity and Magnetic Winding Density for SHARP Magnetograms in Spherical Coordinates.

Spherical winding and helicity (2023)
Journal Article
Xiao, D., Prior, C., & Yeates, A. (2023). Spherical winding and helicity. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, 56(20), Article 205201. https://doi.org/10.1088/1751-8121/accc17

In ideal magnetohydrodynamics, magnetic helicity is a conserved dynamical quantity and a topological invariant closely related to Gauss linking numbers. However, for open magnetic fields with non-zero boundary components, the latter geometrical inter... Read More about Spherical winding and helicity.

ARTop: an open-source tool for measuring active region topology at the solar photosphere (2023)
Journal Article
Alielden, K., MacTaggart, D., Ming, Q., Prior, C., & Raphaldini, B. (2023). ARTop: an open-source tool for measuring active region topology at the solar photosphere. RAS Techniques and Instruments, 2(1), 398-407. https://doi.org/10.1093/rasti/rzad029

The importance of measuring topological quantities, such as magnetic helicity, in solar observations has long been recognized. In particular, topological quantities play an important role in both understanding and predicting solar eruptions. In this... Read More about ARTop: an open-source tool for measuring active region topology at the solar photosphere.

A minimal model of elastic instabilities in biological filament bundles (2022)
Journal Article
Panter, J., Kusumaatmaja, H., & Prior, C. (2022). A minimal model of elastic instabilities in biological filament bundles. Journal of the Royal Society. Interface, 19(194), Article 20220287. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2022.0287

We present a model of a system of elastic fibres which exhibits complex, coupled, nonlinear deformations via a connecting elastic spring network. This model can capture physically observed deformations such as global buckling, pinching and internal c... Read More about A minimal model of elastic instabilities in biological filament bundles.

An exact threshold for separator bifurcation (2022)
Journal Article
Prior, C., & Wyper, P. (2022). An exact threshold for separator bifurcation. Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics, 116(4), 321-349. https://doi.org/10.1080/03091929.2022.2085696

Reconnection involving magnetic separators is known to lead to the spontaneous generation of new separator pairs. In this work, we explore the bifurcation process for a system composed of a pair of null points with a joining separator. We begin with... Read More about An exact threshold for separator bifurcation.

Magnetic Winding as an Indicator of Flare Activity in Solar Active Regions (2022)
Journal Article
Raphaldini, B., Prior, C. B., & MacTaggart, D. (2022). Magnetic Winding as an Indicator of Flare Activity in Solar Active Regions. Astrophysical Journal, 927(2), Article 156. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac4df9

Magnetic helicity is a measure of the entanglement of magnetic field lines used to characterize the complexity of solar active region (AR) magnetic fields. Previous attempts to use helicity-based indicators to predict solar eruptive/flaring events ha... Read More about Magnetic Winding as an Indicator of Flare Activity in Solar Active Regions.

Direct evidence that twisted flux tube emergence creates solar active regions (2021)
Journal Article
MacTaggart, D., Prior, C., Raphaldini, B., Romano, P., & Guglielmino, S. (2021). Direct evidence that twisted flux tube emergence creates solar active regions. Nature Communications, 12(1), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26981-7

The magnetic nature of the formation of solar active regions lies at the heart of understanding solar activity and, in particular, solar eruptions. A widespread model, used in many theoretical studies, simulations and the interpretation of observatio... Read More about Direct evidence that twisted flux tube emergence creates solar active regions.

Intrinsic winding of braided vector fields in tubular subdomains (2021)
Journal Article
Prior, C. B., & Yeates, A. R. (2021). Intrinsic winding of braided vector fields in tubular subdomains. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, 54(46), Article 465701. https://doi.org/10.1088/1751-8121/ac2ea3

Braided vector fields on spatial subdomains which are homeomorphic to the cylinder play a crucial role in applications such as solar and plasma physics, relativistic astrophysics, fluid and vortex dynamics, elasticity, and bio-elasticity. Often the v... Read More about Intrinsic winding of braided vector fields in tubular subdomains.

WASP: a software package for correctly characterizing the topological development of ribbon structures (2021)
Journal Article
Sierzega, Z., Wereszczynski, J., & Prior, C. (2021). WASP: a software package for correctly characterizing the topological development of ribbon structures. Scientific Reports, 11, Article 1527. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80851-8

We introduce the Writhe Application Software Package (WASP) which can be used to characterisze the topology of ribbon structures, the underlying mathematical model of DNA, Biopolymers, superfluid vorticies, elastic ropes and magnetic flux ropes. This... Read More about WASP: a software package for correctly characterizing the topological development of ribbon structures.

Magnetic winding: what is it and what is it good for? (2020)
Journal Article
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

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 articl... Read More about Magnetic winding: what is it and what is it good for?.

Spatial scales and locality of magnetic helicity (2020)
Journal Article
Prior, C., Hawkes, G., & Berger, M. (2020). Spatial scales and locality of magnetic helicity. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 635, Article A95. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201936675

Context: Magnetic helicity is approximately conserved in resistive magnetohydrodynamic models. It quantifies the entanglement of the magnetic field within the plasma. The transport and removal of helicity is crucial in both dynamo development in the... Read More about Spatial scales and locality of magnetic helicity.

Obtaining Tertiary Protein Structures by the ab Initio Interpretation of Small Angle X-ray Scattering Data (2020)
Journal Article
Prior, C., Davies, O. R., Bruce, D., & Pohl, E. (2020). Obtaining Tertiary Protein Structures by the ab Initio Interpretation of Small Angle X-ray Scattering Data. Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, 16(3), 1985-2001. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jctc.9b01010

Small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is an important tool for investigating the structure of proteins in solution. We present a novel ab initio method representing polypeptide chains as discrete curves used to derive a meaningful three-dimensional mod... Read More about Obtaining Tertiary Protein Structures by the ab Initio Interpretation of Small Angle X-ray Scattering Data.

Interpreting magnetic helicity flux in solar flux emergence (2019)
Journal Article
Prior, C., & MacTaggart, D. (2019). Interpreting magnetic helicity flux in solar flux emergence. Journal of Plasma Physics, 85(2), Article 775850201. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022377819000229

Magnetic helicity flux gives information about the topology of a magnetic field passing through a boundary. In solar physics applications, this boundary is the photosphere and magnetic helicity flux has become an important quantity in analysing magne... Read More about Interpreting magnetic helicity flux in solar flux emergence.