33 research outputs found
Speed of Meridional Flows and Magnetic Flux Transport on the Sun
We use the magnetic butterfly diagram to determine the speed of the magnetic
flux transport on the solar surface towards the poles. The manifestation of the
flux transport is clearly visible as elongated structures extended from the
sunspot belt to the polar regions. The slopes of these structures are measured
and interpreted as meridional magnetic flux transport speed. Comparison with
the time-distance helioseismology measurements of the mean speed of the
meridional flows at the depth of 3.5--12 Mm shows a generally good agreement,
but the speeds of the flux transport and the meridional flow are significantly
different in areas occupied by the magnetic field. The local circulation flows
around active regions, especially the strong equatorward flows on the
equatorial side of active regions affect the mean velocity profile derived by
helioseismology, but do not influence the magnetic flux transport. The results
show that the mean longitudinally averaged meridional flow measurements by
helioseismology may not be used directly in solar dynamo models for describing
the magnetic flux transport, and that it is necessary to take into account the
longitudinal structure of these flows.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted in ApJ Letter
Comparison of solar surface flows inferred from time--distance helioseismology and coherent structure tracking using HMI/SDO observations
We compare measurements of horizontal flows on the surface of the Sun using
helioseismic time--distance inversions and coherent structure tracking of solar
granules. Tracking provides 2D horizontal flows on the solar surface, whereas
the time--distance inversions estimate the full 3-D velocity flows in the
shallow near-surface layers. Both techniques use HMI observations as an input.
We find good correlations between the various measurements resulting from the
two techniques. Further, we find a good agreement between these measurements
and the time-averaged Doppler line-of-sight velocity, and also perform sanity
checks on the vertical flow that resulted from the 3-D time--distance
inversion.Comment: 22 pages of the manuscript, 5 figures, 3 tables, accepted for
publication in the Astrophysical Journa
Polar cap magnetic field reversals during solar grand minima: could pores play a role?
We study the magnetic flux carried by pores located outside active regions
with sunspots and investigate their possible contribution to the reversal of
the global magnetic field of the Sun. We find that they contain a total flux of
comparable amplitude to the total magnetic flux contained in polar caps. The
pores located at distances of 40--100~Mm from the closest active region have
systematically the correct sign to contribute to the polar cap reversal. These
pores can predominantly be found in bipolar magnetic regions. We propose that
during grand minima of solar activity, such a systematic polarity trend, akin
to a weak magnetic (Babcock-Leighton-like) source term could still be operating
but was missed by the contemporary observers due to the limited resolving power
of their telescopes.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in
Astronomy&Astrophysic
Atmosphere above a large solar pore
A large solar pore with a granular light bridge was observed on October 15,
2008 with the IBIS spectrometer at the Dunn Solar Telescope and a 69-min long
time series of spectral scans in the lines Ca II 854.2 nm and Fe I 617.3 nm was
obtained. The intensity and Doppler signals in the Ca II line were separated.
This line samples the middle chromosphere in the core and the middle
photosphere in the wings. Although no indication of a penumbra is seen in the
photosphere, an extended filamentary structure, both in intensity and Doppler
signals, is observed in the Ca II line core. An analysis of morphological and
dynamical properties of the structure shows a close similarity to a
superpenumbra of a sunspot with developed penumbra. A special attention is paid
to the light bridge, which is the brightest feature in the pore seen in the Ca
II line centre and shows an enhanced power of chromospheric oscillations at 3-5
mHz. Although the acoustic power flux in the light bridge is five times higher
than in the "quiet" chromosphere, it cannot explain the observed brightness.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted in Journal of Physics: Conference Serie
Large-scale horizontal flows in the solar photosphere V: Possible evidence for the disconnection of bi-polar sunspot groups from their magnetic roots
In a recent paper (Svanda et al., 2008, A&A 477, 285) we pointed out that,
based on the tracking of Doppler features in the full-disc MDI Dopplergrams,
the active regions display two dynamically different regimes. We speculated
that this could be a manifestation of the sudden change in the active regions
dynamics, caused by the dynamic disconnection of sunspots from their magnetic
roots as proposed by Schuessler & Rempel (2005, A&A 441, 337). Here we
investigate the dynamic behaviour of the active regions recorded in the
high-cadence MDI data over the last solar cycle in order to confirm the
predictions in the Schuessler's & Rempel's paper. We find that, after drastic
reduction of the sample, which is done to avoid disturbing effects, a large
fraction of active regions displays a sudden decrease in the rotation speed,
which is compatible with the mechanism of the dynamic disconnection of sunspots
from their parental magnetic structures.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, 1 table; accepted in Astronomy & Astrophysic
Quasi full-disk maps of solar horizontal velocities using SDO/HMI data
For the first time, the motion of granules (solar plasma on the surface on
scales larger than 2.5 Mm) has been followed over the entire visible surface of
the Sun, using SDO/HMI white-light data.
Horizontal velocity fields are derived from image correlation tracking using
a new version of the coherent structure tracking algorithm.The spatial and
temporal resolutions of the horizontal velocity map are 2.5 Mm and 30 min
respectively .
From this reconstruction, using the multi-resolution analysis, one can obtain
to the velocity field at different scales with its derivatives such as the
horizontal divergence or the vertical component of the vorticity. The intrinsic
error on the velocity is ~0.25 km/s for a time sequence of 30 minutes and a
mesh size of 2.5 Mm.This is acceptable compared to the granule velocities,
which range between 0.3 km/s and 1.8 km/s. A high correlation between
velocities computed from Hinode and SDO/HMI has been found (85%). From the data
we derive the power spectrum of the supergranulation horizontal velocity field,
the solar differential rotation, and the meridional velocity.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, accepted in Astronomy and Astrophysic
Characteristics of solar meridional flows during solar cycle 23
We have analyzed available full-disc data from the Michelson Doppler Imager
(MDI) on board SoHO using the "ring diagram" technique to determine the
behavior of solar meridional flows over solar cycle 23 in the outer 2% of the
solar radius. We find that the dominant component of meridional flows during
solar maximum was much lower than that during the minima at the beginning of
cycles 23 and 24. There were differences in the flow velocities even between
the two minima. The meridional flows show a migrating pattern with
higher-velocity flows migrating towards the equator as activity increases.
Additionally, we find that the migrating pattern of the meridional flow matches
those of sunspot butterfly diagram and the zonal flows in the shallow layers. A
high latitude band in meridional flow appears around 2004, well before the
current activity minimum. A Legendre polynomial decomposition of the meridional
flows shows that the latitudinal pattern of the flow was also different during
the maximum as compared to that during the two minima. The different components
of the flow have different time-dependences, and the dependence is different at
different depths.Comment: To appear in Ap