Are all sunspots created equal or are some sunspots formed by a different mechanism than others? High quality observations from the Helioseismic Magnetic Imager (HMI) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) suggest bimodal distribution in properties of sunspots.
We present potential filed and nonlinear force-free magnetic field (NLFFF) extrapolations of full-disk magnetogram observed by SDO/HMI instrument. The study shows that NLFFF model agrees significantly better with coronal magnetic loops as observed in SDO/AIA images.
HMI observations reveal a slow, north-south asymmetric polar magnetic field reversal. Cycle 24 has been weak; an even weaker Cycle 25 seems probable.
Taking advantage of 11 different databases, we use statistical analysis to probe the nature of photospheric magnetic structures. We find evidence of two separate mechanisms at play, and propose that they are directly connected to the global and small-scale components of the solar dynamo.
By synthesizing the results of photospheric field change indicated by HMI observations and coronal field variation suggested by the NLFFF modeling, we study the flare-related 3D magnetic restructuring and find it consistent with the coronal implosion scenario in the low solar atmosphere.
The STARA catalog of sunspot properties from the SOHO/MDI and SDO/HMI data is presented and discussed. For STARA, an automated detection algorithm is employed to compile the first sunspot record from space-based instruments. This catalog is publicly available at http://www.nso.edu/staff/fwatson/STARA.
Flow system in an average supergranule is compared to the moat flow around axisymmetric sunspots. Both phenomena are very similar, only the outflow in the moat is distorted due to the proper motion of the sunspot with respect to the local frame of rest and moat is a purely downflow region.
Observed seismic upper bounds on large-scale lateral (horizontal) convective-velocity amplitudes in the solar interior at the depth r/R = 0.96 do not agree with modeling results derived at a similar depth from global convection simulations. The observations of low convective-velocity amplitudes throw into question our understanding of thermal and angular momentum transport in the Sun.
Multi-height Doppler velocity maps from two layers separated by 50 km are obtained from combinations of currently recorded HMI filtergrams. Using synthetic data of spectral line profiles produced in a convective environment, we test the ability to recover vertical velocity fields at different heights.
We attempt to forecast M- and X-class solar flares using a support vector machine algorithm and 4 years of HMI vector magnetic field data. With the true skill statistic as the preferred metric to estimate the algorithm performances, we obtain good predictive abilities. This may be partly due to fine-tuning the algorithm for this purpose, and to a choice of 13 SHARP parameters obtained from vector magnetograms.