Intermittent energy bursts and recurrent topological change of a twisting magnetic flux tube

When continuously twisted, a magnetic flux tube suffers a knot-of-tension instability, like a twisted bundle of rubber bands, and undergoes rapid reconnection with untwisted field lines at the twist-untwist boundary, whereby a giant burstlike energy release takes place. Subsequently, bursts occur intermittently and reconnection advances deeper into the untwisted region. Then the twisted flux tubes, which are reconnected with untwisted field lines, now reconnect with one another to return to the original axisymmetric tube. The process is thus repeatable.