Abstract

Contributed Talk - Splinter Solar

Tuesday, 10 September 2024, 14:40   (S15)

On the connectivity of sunspots and surrounding network through moving magnetic features

Rolf Schlichenmaier (1), Nazaret Bello Gonzalez (1), Shanmugha Balan (2), Marta Garcia (3), Jan Jurcak (3), Carsten Denker (4)
1: Institut für Sonnenphysik (KIS), 2: Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India, (3) Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, (4) Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik (AIP)

Sunspots are the most prominent manifestion of solar magnetic fields. Their complex magnetic field structure and dynamics present an outstanding puzzle. In particular the formation of the sunspot penumbra and the associated creation of horizontal components of the magnetc field is still not fully understood. We will review the current understanding and investigate the connectivity of the sunspot magnetic field with the surrounding network. Sunspot are known to be hosted within supergranular cells which are surrounded by the network. In mature sunspots the supergranular cell transforms into a stronger moat flow with velocities up to 1 km/s. While the outwards directed moat flow is unmagnetic, individual magnetic elements are obsered as Moving Magnetic Features (MMFs) to migrate from the spot to the surrounding network. These MMFs connect the sunpot magnetic field with the network magnetic fields and could be linked to the horizontal component of the magnetic field in the penumbra. We present observational evidence using Gregor data from June 28, 2022, that the rise of sea-serpent fields at the outer spot boundary is observed as MMFs migrating away from the spot to eventually reach and reconnect with the network magnetic field. These findings indicate that the network magnetic fields are, at least partially, rooted in the subphotospheric magnetic sunspot trunk. Thus, the surrounding network is an ingral part sunspot formation, structure and dynamics, and the connecting MMFs in the photosphere may play a crucial role in the creation of the penumbra.