arXiv subjects

Quan Xie

Publications and source records attributed to Quan Xie.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Inferring photospheric horizontal flows from multiple observations with SUVEL models

Photospheric horizontal velocity fields play essential roles in the formation and evolution of numerous solar activities. Various methods for estimating the horizontal velocity field have been proposed in the past. Aiming at the highest available (and future) spatial resolution (10 km/pixel) observations, a new method the Shallow U-net models (SUVEL) based on realistic numerical simulation and machine learning techniques was recently developed to track the photospheric horizontal velocity fields. Although SUVEL has been tested on numerical simulation data, its performance on solar observational data remained unclear. In this work, we apply SUVEL to the photospheric intensity observations from four ground-based solar telescopes (DKIST, GST, NVST, and SST) with the largest available apertures, and compare the results obtained from SUVEL with the Fourier local correlation tracking method (FLCT). Average correlation indices between granular regions and velocity fields inferred by SUVEL (FLCT) are 0.63, 0.81, 0.80, and 0.87 (0.00, 0.11, 0.16, and 0.10) for DKIST, GST, NVST, and SST observations. Higher correlation indices between the velocity fields tracked by SUVEL and granular patterns than FLCT reveal the superior performance of SUVEL, validating its reliability with respect to solar observational data.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2025

Improving the {\Gamma}-functions Method for Vortex Identification

Vortices have been observed at various heights within the solar atmosphere and are suggested to potentially play great roles in heating the solar upper atmosphere. Multiple automated vortex detection methods have been developed and applied to detect vortices. We aim to improve the $\Gamma$-functions method for vortex identification by optimizing the value of $\Gamma_{1min}$ and the approach to calculate $\Gamma_1$ and $\Gamma_2$ used to determine vortex center and edge. In this way, we can detect vortices more accurately and enable more statistical studies that can improve our knowledge of the generation and evolution of vortices in the solar atmosphere. We apply the automated swirl detection algorithm (ASDA, one representative of $\Gamma$-functions method) with different parameters to various synthetic data, with each containing 1000 Lamb-Oseen vortices, and search for the optimal $\Gamma_{1min}$ and kernel size when calculating $\Gamma_1$ and $\Gamma_2$. We also compare another detection method using simulation and observational data to validate the results obtained from the synthetic data. The best performance is found with the Optimized ASDA, which combines different kernel sizes (5, 7, 9, and 11) to calculate $\Gamma_1$ and $\Gamma_2$ with a fixed $\Gamma_{1min}$ = 0.63 to detect vortex center. We find that more vortices can be detected by the Optimized ASDA with higher location, radius, and rotation speed accuracies. The above results are further confirmed by comparing vortices detected by the Optimized ASDA and the SWIRL method on CO5BOLD numerical simulation data and SST observational data.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2024

Photospheric Swirls in a Quiet-Sun Region

Swirl-shaped flow structures have been observed throughout the solar atmosphere, in both emission and absorption, at different altitudes and locations, and are believed to be associated with magnetic structures. However, the distribution patterns of such swirls, especially their spatial positions, remain unclear. Using the Automated Swirl Detection Algorithm (ASDA), we identified swirls from the high-resolution photospheric observations, centered on Fe I 630.25 nm, of a quiet region near the Sun's central meridian by the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope. Through a detailed study of the locations of the detected small-scale swirls with an average radius of $\sim$300 km, we found that most of them are located in lanes between mesogranules (which have an average diameter of $\sim$5.4 Mm) instead of the commonly believed intergranular lanes. The squared rotation, expansion/contraction, vector speeds, and proxy kinetic energy are all found to follow Gaussian distributions. Their rotation speed, expansion/contraction speed, and circulation are positively correlated with their radius. These results suggest that photospheric swirls at different scales and locations across the observational 56.5" $\times$ 57.5" field-of-view (FOV) could share the same triggering mechanism at preferred spatial and energy scales. A comparison with previous work suggests that the number of photospheric swirls is positively correlated with the number of local magnetic concentrations, stressing the close relation between swirls and local magnetic concentrations:the number of swirls should positively correlate with the number and strength of local magnetic concentrations.

astro-ph.SR↗