Representation of Sun Spots with Shapelets

Shapelets are complete set of orthonormal functions that can be used to represent most images. These functions are Gauss-Hermite polynomials and are the eigenfunctions of the 2D harmonic oscillator. They were first used in image processing to study the shape of galaxies. Shapelets have properties that allow one to compute quantities such as chirality, shear and asymmetry in images. We use these functions to represent magnetograms of sunspots, allowing us to calculate a large set of descriptive quantities including those previously mentioned. These quantities are then correlated with the current classification schemes used to type sunspots.