4 research outputs found
Photospheric and Subphotospheric Dynamics of Emerging Magnetic Flux
Magnetic fields emerging from the Sun's interior carry information about
physical processes of magnetic field generation and transport in the convection
zone. Soon after appearance on the solar surface the magnetic flux gets
concentrated in sunspot regions and causes numerous active phenomena on the
Sun. This paper discusses some properties of the emerging magnetic flux
observed on the solar surface and in the interior. A statistical analysis of
variations of the tilt angle of bipolar magnetic regions during the emergence
shows that the systematic tilt with respect to the equator (the Joy's law) is
most likely established below the surface. However, no evidence of the
dependence of the tilt angle on the amount of emerging magnetic flux, predicted
by the rising magnetic flux rope theories, is found. Analysis of surface plasma
flows in a large emerging active region reveals strong localized upflows and
downflows at the initial phase of emergence but finds no evidence for
large-scale flows indicating future appearance a large-scale magnetic
structure. Local helioseismology provides important tools for mapping
perturbations of the wave speed and mass flows below the surface. Initial
results from SOHO/MDI and GONG reveal strong diverging flows during the flux
emergence, and also localized converging flows around stable sunspots. The wave
speed images obtained during the process of formation of a large active region,
NOAA 10488, indicate that the magnetic flux gets concentrated in strong field
structures just below the surface. Further studies of magnetic flux emergence
require systematic helioseismic observations from the ground and space, and
realistic MHD simulations of the subsurface dynamics.Comment: 21 pages, 15 figures, to appear in Space Science Review
Increasing lifetime of recurrent sunspot groups within the Greenwich photoheliographic results
Long-lived (> 20 days) sunspot groups extracted from the Greenwich Photoheliographic Results (GPR) are examined for evidence of decadal change. The problem of identifying sunspot groups that are observed on consecutive solar rotations (recurrent sunspot groups) is tackled by first constructing manually an example dataset of recurrent sunspot groups and then using machine learning to generalise this subset to the whole GPR. The resulting dataset of recurrent sunspot groups is verified against previous work by A. Maunder and other Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO) compilers. Recurrent groups are found to exhibit a slightly larger value for the Gnevyshev -aEuro parts per thousand Waldmeier Relationship than the value found by Petrovay and van Driel-Gesztelyi (Solar Phys. 51, 25, 1977), who used recurrence data from the Debrecen Photoheliographic Results. Evidence for sunspot-group lifetime change over the previous century is observed within recurrent groups. A lifetime increase of a factor of 1.4 between 1915 and 1940 is found, which closely agrees with results from Blanter et al. (Solar Phys. 237, 329, 2006). Furthermore, this increase is found to exist over a longer period (1915 to 1950) than previously thought and provisional evidence is found for a decline between 1950 and 1965. Possible applications of machine-learning procedures to the analysis of historical sunspot observations, the determination of the magnetic topology of the solar corona and the incidence of severe space-weather events are outlined briefly