Seething Horizontal Magnetic Fields in the Quiet Solar Photosphere
Abstract
The photospheric magnetic field outside of active regions and the network has a ubiquitous and dynamic line-of-sight component that strengthens from disk center to limb as expected for a nearly horizontal orientation. This component shows a striking time variation with an average temporal rms near the limb of 1.7 G at ~3" resolution. In our moderate resolution observations the nearly horizontal component has a frequency variation power law exponent of -1.4 below 1.5 mHz and is spatially patchy on scales up to ~15 arcsec. The field may be a manifestation of changing magnetic connections between eruptions and evolution of small magnetic flux elements in response to convective motions. It shows no detectable latitude or longitude variations.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0702415,
title = {Seething Horizontal Magnetic Fields in the Quiet Solar Photosphere},
author = {J. W. Harvey and D. Branston and C. J. Henney and C. U. Keller and the SOLIS Team and the GONG Team},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0702415},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
7 pages, 6 figures, submitted to ApJ letters, quality of figures significantly degraded here by compression requirements