Understanding facular granules and lanes

Recent high resolution observations by Lites et al. (2004) show details of facular granules at 0.12^{primeprime}, including dark facular lanes. For an interpretation of these data a basic facular model is constructed, consisting of a magnetic flux sheet embedded in a plane parallel atmosphere. While the maximum contrast originates from the "hot wall" of the flux-sheet depression, the model explains the wide brightening limbward of the facular magnetic field as due to a radiative transfer effect caused by the reduced opacity of the rarefied flux-sheet atmosphere. This model produces a dark, narrow lane centerward of the facular granule even in the absence of granular flow as a consequence of the cool deep layers of the magnetic flux sheet. These results carry over to a self-consistent simulation of a flux concentration in dynamic interaction with convective motion, where the dark lane deepens and broadens.