The Distribution of the Quiet Sun Photospheric Magnetic Flux

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

Solar: Photosphere, Magnetic Fields

Scientific paper

A gradient-based tessellating algorithm is used to study the magnetic field structure of the quiet Sun photosphere using SoHO full disk magnetograms. We find that the field is not uniformly distributed, but parcelled into flux concentrations. Both the flux and size of the concentrations are found to be described by broad, asymmetric distribution functions. Their mean absolute flux and size are found to be about 1.4 x 1018 mx and 6.1 Mm for both polarities in unsmoothed magnetograms at 5 gauss threshold. These values represent a weighted average for both network- and intranetwork magnetic fields, since the present method cannot currently distinguish between the two regions. Both flux and size distributions become more symmetric and less peaked in response to smoothing of images. Extrapolating this trend to sub-resolution scale, we note a linear decrease in size but a rapid increase in the mean absolute field strength, with asymptotic values of about 400 km and 50 gauss. This exercise shows that the true field strengths of quiet magnetic elements are higher and their size smaller than usually inferred from observations. This is because observation of mixed polarity regions under finite resolution causes the observed flux to be smeared out and apparently modified. Therefore, this flux cannot be interpreted independently of the geometric structure and flux distribution of the concentrations.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

The Distribution of the Quiet Sun Photospheric Magnetic Flux does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with The Distribution of the Quiet Sun Photospheric Magnetic Flux, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The Distribution of the Quiet Sun Photospheric Magnetic Flux will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-962764

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.