Photometric properties of resolved and unresolved magnetic elements

TL;DR

This study models the photometric signatures of magnetic flux tubes in the solar photosphere, revealing how observational factors influence the appearance of magnetic features and suggesting they may be clusters of smaller elements.

Contribution

Developed two-dimensional static models of magnetic flux tubes to analyze their photometric signatures under various observational conditions.

Findings

Bright magnetic features are influenced by observation specifics.

Some features are better explained as clusters of smaller elements.

Photometric properties depend on physical and observational factors.

Abstract

We investigate the photometric signature of magnetic flux tubes in the solar photosphere. We developed two dimensional, static numerical models of isolated and clustered magnetic flux tubes. We investigated the emergent intensity profiles at different lines-of-sight for various spatial resolutions and opacity models. We found that both geometric and photometric properties of bright magnetic features are determined not only by the physical properties of the tube and its surroundings, but also by the particularities of the observations, including the line/continuum formation height, the spatial resolution and the image analyses techniques applied. We show that some observational results presented in the literature can be interpreted by considering bright magnetic features to be clusters of smaller elements, rather than a monolithic flux tube.