# Background-subtracted Solar Activity Maps

## TL;DR

The paper introduces Background-subtracted Solar Activity Maps (BaSAMs), a new quantitative visualization tool using SDO data to analyze solar magnetic and UV intensity variations over time and across different solar activity conditions.

## Contribution

It presents a novel method for creating BaSAMs to assess and visualize solar activity, enabling better analysis of magnetic and UV intensity variations and their relation to solar features.

## Key findings

- BaSAMs effectively distinguish quiet-Sun magnetic contributions.
- Flaring and brightenings are clearly visualized in UV BaSAMs.
- Sunspot flux systems are connected to supergranular cells.

## Abstract

We introduce the concept of a Background-subtracted Solar Activity Map (BaSAM) as a new quantitative tool to assess and visualize the temporal variation of the photospheric magnetic field and the UV 160 nm intensity. The method utilizes data of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and is applicable to both full-disk observations and regions-of-interest. We illustrate and discuss the potential of BaSAM resorting to datasets representing solar minimum and maximum conditions: (1) Contributions of quiet-Sun magnetic fields, i.e. the network and (decaying) plage, to solar activity can be better determined when their variation is measured with respect to the background given by "deep" magnetograms. (2) Flaring and intermittent brightenings are easily appraised in BaSAMs of the UV intensity. (3) Both magnetic-field and intensity variations demonstrated that the flux system of sunspots is well connected to the surrounding supergranular cells. In addition, producing daily full-disk BaSAMs for the entire mission time of SDO provides a unique tool to analyze solar cycle variations, showing how vigorous or frail are the variations of magnetic-field and intensity features.