Magnetic outbreak associated with exploding granulations

TL;DR

This study reports a newly observed magnetic outbreak phenomenon on the Sun, characterized by rapid flux growth and explosion into fragments, observed with high-resolution imaging, potentially representing the convective blowup process.

Contribution

The paper introduces the first observational evidence of magnetic outbreak, a new flux emergence process associated with exploding granulations, using high-resolution solar observations.

Findings

Identified six magnetic outbreak events in 6 hours of observation.

Magnetic fragments have fluxes of 10^16-10^17 Mx and move at 0.5-2.2 km/s.

Potential link to the convective blowup process in solar magnetism.

Abstract

Diagnosing the spatial-temporal pattern of magnetic flux on the Sun is vital for understanding the origin of solar magnetism and activity. Here, we report a new form of flux appearance, magnetic outbreak, using observations with an extremely high spatial resolution of 0.16 arcsec from the 1.6-m Goode Solar Telescope (GST) at the Big Bear Solar Observatory. Magnetic outbreak refers to an early growth of unipolar magnetic flux and its later explosion into fragments, in association with plasma upflow and exploding granulations; each individual fragment has flux of 10$^{16}$-10$^{17}$ Mx, moving apart with velocity of 0.5-2.2 km/s. The magnetic outbreak takes place in the hecto-Gauss region of pore moats. In this study, we identify six events of magnetic outbreak during 6-hour observations over an approximate 40$\times$40 arcsec$^{2}$ field of view. The newly discovered magnetic outbreak might be the first evidence of the long-anticipated convective blowup.