The Evolution of Photospheric Flows in Active Regions

We will present first results of an analysis of the photospheric flow field in and around active region AR 11066. It emerged on 2nd May, 2010 near central meridian and developed into a small active region with simple bipolar structure. We will use SDO/HMI data to estimate the photospheric flow field applying the optical flow technique DAVE4VM (differential affine velocity estimator for vector magnetograms). Using both line-of-sight and vector magnetograms we will study the evolution of the photospheric flow velocity during the early stage of development of the active region.