English

Modeling brightness temperature of sunspots using ALMA single-dish observations

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2026-02-23 v1

Abstract

We model sunspot brightness temperature in the wavelength range 0.3-10mm using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) single-dish measurements together with other instruments. Our modeling idea starts from an existing model, the 1D semi-empirical Avrett-Tian-Landi-Curdt-W\"ulser (ATLCW) model for sunspots. The original model is then modified in density and temperature with a constant factor over all heights. A least-square fit in both density and temperature to the observed values yields an improved model for sunspot brightness temperature. Observations show that sunspots are darker than QS at wavelengths below 2 mm and brighter beyond, while fitting of the ATLCW sunspot model imply that sunspots should be darker than QS over the entireALMArange. The best-fitted sunspot brightness temperature profiles resulted in 3.6-4.0 times lower sunspot density compared to the original sunspot ATLCW model, or 1.4-1.8 times higher density compared to QS. The temperature came out around 1.2 times higher than the original ATLCW predictions for sunspots, or 1.2 times lower than QS temperature. Even with improved density and temperature parameters, the remaining discrepancy between the bestfitted models and observations indicated that additional improvements are needed in the ATLCW model and modeling assumptions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.18069,
  title  = {Modeling brightness temperature of sunspots using ALMA single-dish observations},
  author = {F. Matković and R. Brajša and A. O. Benz and H. -G. Ludwig and C. L. Selhorst and I. Skokić and D. Sudar and A. Hanslmeier},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.18069},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

11 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables, accepted and published in Astronomische Nachrichten/Astronomical Notes

R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:43:58.039Z