Identification

Title

Opposite polarity magnetic fields and convective downflows in a simulated sunspot penumbra

Abstract

Recent numerical simulations and observations of sunspots show a significant amount of opposite polarity magnetic fields within the sunspot penumbra. Most of the opposite polarity fields are associated with convective downflows. We present an analysis of 3D MHD simulations through forward modeling of synthetic Stokes profiles of the Fe I 6301.5 angstrom and Fe I 6302.5 angstrom lines. The synthetic Stokes profiles are spatially and spectrally degraded considering typical instrument properties. Line bisector shifts of the Fe I 6301.5 angstrom line are used to determine line-of-sight velocities. Far wing magnetograms are constructed from the Stokes V profiles of the Fe I 6302.5 angstrom line. While we find an overall good agreement between observations and simulations, the fraction of opposite polarity magnetic fields, the downflow filling factor, and the opposite polarity-downflow association are strongly affected by spatial smearing and presence of strong gradients in the line-of-sight magnetic fields and velocity. A significant fraction of opposite polarity magnetic fields and downflows is hidden in the observations due to typical instrumental noise. Comparing simulations that differ by more than a factor of two in grid spacing, we find that these quantities are robust within the simulations.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d78p63p0

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2019-10-14T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact