Emerging Flux Detection for the Solar Dynamics Observatory
Abstract
We present an emerging-flux detection method and code that are being incorporated into the early warning pipeline for the Solar Dynamics Observatory. SWAMIS is a magnetic feature tracking code that has been used primarily to probe the small scale solar dynamo; we have adapted it to find large scale bipolar emergences of new flux in time series of HMI full-disk line of sight magnetograms. The new code, SWAMIS-EF, performs feature identification and tracking on multiple spatial scales to identify large flux emergence events that, at full instrument resolution, segment into large clusters of small feature motions. SWAMIS-EF generates flux-emergence event records that highlight all large scale flux emergences (>10 EMx of magnetic flux) in the favorable portion of the solar disk (nominally, within 0.86 Rs of disk center). A variant on the code, "SWAMIS-S", will describe the motion and interactions of every single resolvable magnetic feature on the Sun, and is anticipated by the end of Mission Year 1. The SWAMIS-EF event stream will enable both improved space weather prediction and retrospective "data mining" studies of the solar dynamo and the effect of flux emergence on the chromosphere and corona.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #216
- Pub Date:
- May 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010AAS...21640209D