The Origin of "Unipolar" Magnetic Flux Emergence
Abstract
Automated tracking of magnetograms provides the ability to detect magnetic features in an unbiased manner. Such feature tracking shows many apparent unipolar flux emergences. Flux conservation dictates that this cannot be a real phenomenon and thus must be due to processes below the detection limit of routine measurements. We use large numbers of these apparent unipolar events to distinguish between two models of small-scale magnetic flux formation. We find that asymmetric flux emergence, in which the poles of the emerging flux tube have different cross sections or incidence angles at the photosphere, can account for at most half of the events. Convergence of like-polarity poles due to flows at sub-resolution scales provides a better explanation for the majority of the events.
- Publication:
-
AAS/Solar Physics Division Meeting #37
- Pub Date:
- June 2006
- Bibcode:
- 2006SPD....37.0706L