THE SOLAR INTERNETWORK. II. FLUX APPEARANCE and DISAPPEARANCE RATES

Small-scale internetwork magnetic fields are important ingredients of the quiet Sun. In this paper we analyze how they appear and disappear on the solar surface. Using high resolution Hinode magnetograms, we follow the evolution of individual magnetic elements in the interior of two supergranular ce...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Gosic, Milan, Bellot Rubio, Luis R., Toro, José Carlos del, Orozco Suárez, David, Katsukawa, Y.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/135247
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/135247
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Sun: magnetic fields
Sun: photosphere
Descripción
Sumario:Small-scale internetwork magnetic fields are important ingredients of the quiet Sun. In this paper we analyze how they appear and disappear on the solar surface. Using high resolution Hinode magnetograms, we follow the evolution of individual magnetic elements in the interior of two supergranular cells at the disk center. From up to 38 hr of continuous measurements, we show that magnetic flux appears in internetwork regions at a rate of 120 ±3 Mx cm day (3.7 ±0.4 ×10 Mx day over the entire solar surface). Flux disappears from the internetwork at a rate of 125 ±6 Mx cm day (3.9 ±0.5 ×10 Mx day) through fading of magnetic elements, cancelation between opposite-polarity features, and interactions with network patches, which converts internetwork elements into network features. Most of the flux is lost through fading and interactions with the network, at nearly the same rate of about 50 Mx cm day. Our results demonstrate that the sources and sinks of internetwork magnetic flux are well balanced. Using the instantaneous flux appearance and disappearance rates, we successfully reproduce the time evolution of the total unsigned flux in the two supergranular cells.