765 research outputs found
1D atmosphere models from inversion of Fe I 630 nm observations with an application to solar irradiance studies
Present-day semi-empirical models of solar irradiance (SI) variations employ
spectra computed on one-dimensional atmosphere models (1D models)
representative of various solar surface features to reconstruct SI changes
measured on timescales greater than a day. Various recent studies have,
however, pointed out that the spectra synthesized on 1D models do not reflect
the radiative emission of the inhomogenous atmosphere revealed by
high-resolution solar observations. We aimed to derive observational-based
atmospheres from such observations and test their accuracy for SI estimates. We
analysed spectro-polarimetric data of the Fe I 630 nm line pair on photospheric
regions representative of the granular, quiet Sun pattern (QS) and of small-
and large-scale magnetic features, both bright and dark with respect to the QS.
The data were taken on 2011 August 6, with the CRISP at the Swedish Solar
Telescope, under excellent seeing conditions. We derived atmosphere models of
the observed regions from data inversion with the SIR code. We studied the
sensitivity of results to spatial resolution and temporal evolution, and
discussed the obtained atmospheres with respect to several 1D models. The
atmospheres derived from our study agree well with most of the compared 1D
models, both qualitatively and quantitatively (differences are within 10%), but
for pore regions. Spectral synthesis computations on the atmosphere obtained
from the QS observations return SI between 400 nm and 2400 nm that agrees, on
average, within 2.2% with standard reference measurements, and within -0.14%
with the SI computed on the quiet Sun atmosphere employed by the most advanced
semi-empirical model of SI variations.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa
Analysis of full disc Ca II K spectroheliograms. II. Towards an accurate assessment of long-term variations in plage areas
Reconstructions of past irradiance variations require suitable data on solar
activity. The longest direct proxy is the sunspot number, and it has been most
widely employed for this purpose. These data, however, only provide information
on the surface magnetic field emerging in sunspots, while a suitable proxy of
the evolution of the bright magnetic features, specifically faculae/plage and
network, is missing. This information can potentially be extracted from the
historical full-disc observations in the Ca II K line. We have analysed over
100,000 historical images from 8 digitised photographic archives of the
Arcetri, Kodaikanal, McMath-Hulbert, Meudon, Mitaka, Mt Wilson, Schauinsland,
and Wendelstein observatories, as well as one archive of modern observations
from the Rome/PSPT. The analysed data cover the period 1893--2018. We first
performed careful photometric calibration and compensation for the
centre-to-limb variation, and then segmented the images to identify plage
regions. This has been consistently applied to both historical and modern
observations. The plage series derived from different archives are generally in
good agreement with each other. However, there are also clear deviations that
most likely hint at intrinsic differences in the data and their digitisation.
We showed that accurate image processing significantly reduces errors in the
plage area estimates. Accurate photometric calibration also allows precise
plage identification on images from different archives without the need to
arbitrarily adjust the segmentation parameters. Finally, by comparing the plage
area series from the various records, we found the conversion laws between
them. This allowed us to produce a preliminary composite of the plage areas
obtained from all the datasets studied here. This is a first step towards an
accurate assessment of the long-term variation of plage regions.Comment: 30 pages, 22 figures, accepted in A&
The potential of Ca II K observations for solar activity and variability studies
Several observatories around the globe started regular full-disc imaging of
the solar atmosphere in the Ca II K line in the early decades of the 20th
century. These observations are continued today at a few sites with either old
spectroheliographs or modern telescopes equipped with narrow-band filters. The
Ca II K time series are unique in representing long-term variations of the
Sun's chromospheric magnetic field. However, meaningful results from their
analysis require accurate processing of the available data and robust merging
of the information stored in different archives. This paper provides an
overview of the historical and modern full-disc Ca II K observations, with
focus on their quality and the main results obtained from their analysis over
the last decade.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure
Ca II K spectroheliograms for studies of long-term changes in solar irradiance
We address the importance of historical full disc Ca II K spectroheliograms
for solar activity and irradiance reconstruction studies. We review our work on
processing such data to enable them to be used in irradiance reconstructions.
We also present our preliminary estimates of the plage areas from five of the
longest available historical Ca II K archives.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Radiative emission of solar features in the Ca II K line: comparison of measurements and models
We study the radiative emission of various types of solar features, such as
quiet Sun, enhanced network, plage, and bright plage regions, identified on
filtergrams taken in the Ca II K line. We analysed fulldisk images obtained
with the PSPT, by using three interference filters that sample the Ca II K line
with different bandpasses. We studied the dependence of the radiative emission
of disk features on the filter bandpass. We also performed a NLTE spectral
synthesis of the Ca II K line integrated over the bandpass of PSPT filters. The
synthesis was carried out by utilizing both the PRD and CRD with the most
recent set of semi empirical atmosphere models in the literature and some
earlier atmosphere models. We measured the CLV of intensity values for various
solar features identified on PSPT images and compared the results obtained with
those derived from the synthesis. We find that CRD calculations derived using
the most recent quiet Sun model, on average, reproduce the measured values of
the quiet Sun regions slightly more accurately than PRD computations with the
same model. This may reflect that the utilized atmospheric model was computed
assuming CRD. Calculations with PRD on earlier quiet Sun model atmospheres
reproduce measured quantities with a similar accuracy as to that achieved here
by applying CRD to the recent model. We also find that the median contrast
values measured for most of the identified bright features, disk positions, and
filter widths are, on average, a factor 1.9 lower than those derived from PRD
simulations performed using the recent bright feature models. The discrepancy
between measured and modeled values decreases by 12% after taking into account
straylight effects on PSPT images. PRD computations on either the most recent
or the earlier atmosphere models of bright features reproduce measurements from
plage and bright plage regions with a similar accuracy.Comment: 14 pages, 18 figures, accepted by A&
The Intensity Profile of the Solar Supergranulation
We have measured the average radial (cell center to network boundary) profile
of the continuum intensity contrast associated with supergranular flows using
data from the Precision Solar Photometric Telescope (PSPT) at the Mauna Loa
Solar Observatory (MLSO). After removing the contribution of the network flux
elements by the application of masks based on Ca II K intensity and averaging
over more than 10^5 supergranular cells, we find a ~ 0.1% decrease in red and
blue continuum intensity from the supergranular cell centers outward,
corresponding to a ~ 1.0 K decrease in brightness temperature across the cells.
The radial intensity profile may be caused either by the thermal signal
associated with the supergranular flows or a variation in the packing density
of unresolved magnetic flux elements. These are not unambiguously distinguished
by the observations, and we raise the possibility that the network magnetic
fields play an active role in supergranular scale selection by enhancing the
radiative cooling of the deep photosphere at the cell boundaries.Comment: Accepted to Ap
Stray-light restoration of full-disk CaII K solar observations: a case study
AIMS: We investigate whether restoration techniques, such as those developed
for application to current observations, can be used to remove stray-light
degradation effects on archive CaII K full-disk observations. We analyze to
what extent these techniques can recover homogeneous time series of data.
METHODS:We develop a restoration algorithm based on a method presented by
Walton & Preminger (1999). We apply this algorithm to data for both present-day
and archive CaII K full-disk observations, which were acquired using the PSPT
mounted at the Rome Observatory, or obtained by digitization of Mt Wilson
photographic-archive spectroheliograms. RESULTS:We show that the restoring
algorithm improves both spatial resolution and photometric contrast of the
analyzed solar observations. We find that the improvement in spatial resolution
is similar for analyzed recent and archive data. On the other hand, the
improvement of photometric contrast is quite poor for the archive data, with
respect to the one obtained for the present-day images. We show that the
quality of restored archive data depends on the photographic calibration
applied to the original observations. In particular, photometry can be
recovered with a restoring algorithm if the photographic-calibration preserves
the intensity information stored in the original data, principally outside the
solar-disk observations.Comment: 10 pages; 9 figure
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