Comment on ``Resolving the 180° Ambiguity in Solar Vector Magnetic Field Data: Evaluating the Effects of Noise, Spatial Resolution, and Method Assumptions''
Abstract
In a recent paper, Leka et al. (Solar Phys. 260, 83, 2009) constructed a synthetic vector magnetogram representing a three-dimensional magnetic structure defined only within a fraction of an arcsec in height. They rebinned the magnetogram to simulate conditions of limited spatial resolution and then compared the results of various azimuth disambiguation methods on the resampled data. Methods relying on the physical calculation of potential and/or non-potential magnetic fields failed in nearly the same, extended parts of the field of view and Leka et al. (Solar Phys. 260, 83, 2009) attributed these failures to the limited spatial resolution. This study shows that the failure of these methods is not due to the limited spatial resolution but due to the narrowly defined test data. Such narrow magnetic structures are not realistic in the real Sun. Physics-based disambiguation methods, adapted for solar magnetic fields extending to infinity, are not designed to handle such data; hence, they could only fail this test. I demonstrate how an appropriate limited-resolution disambiguation test can be performed by constructing a synthetic vector magnetogram very similar to that of Leka et al. (Solar Phys. 260, 83, 2009) but representing a structure defined in the semi-infinite space above the solar photosphere. For this magnetogram I find that even a simple potential-field disambiguation method manages to resolve the ambiguity very successfully, regardless of limited spatial resolution. Therefore, despite the conclusions of Leka et al. (Solar Phys. 260, 83, 2009), a proper limited-spatial-resolution test of azimuth disambiguation methods is yet to be performed in order to identify the best ideas and algorithms.
- Publication:
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Solar Physics
- Pub Date:
- February 2012
- DOI:
- 10.1007/s11207-011-9819-1
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1106.4682
- Bibcode:
- 2012SoPh..276..423G
- Keywords:
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- Active regions;
- magnetic fields;
- Instrumental effects;
- Magnetic fields;
- photosphere;
- Polarization;
- optical;
- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- Solar Physics, in press (19 pp., 5 figures, 2 tables)