arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Sanjay Gosain.
We study the distribution of magnetic shear in an emerging flux region using the high-resolution Hinode/SOT SP observations. The distribution of mean magnetic shear angle across the active region shows large values near region of flux emergence i.e., in the middle of existing bipolar region and decreases while approaching the periphery of the active region.
Predicting the severity of the solar eruptive phenomena like flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) remains a great challenge despite concerted efforts for several decades. The advent of high quality vector magnetograms obtained from Hinode (SOT/SP) has increased the possibility of meeting this challenge. In particular, the Spatially Averaged Signed Shear Angle (SASSA) seems to be an unique parameter to quantify the non-potentiality of the active regions. We demonstrate the usefulness of SASSA for predicting the flare severity. For this purpose we present case studies of the evolution of magnetic non-potentiality using 115 vector magnetograms of four active regions namely ARs NOAA 10930, 10960, 10961 and 10963 during December 08-15, 2006, June 03-10, 2007, June 28-July 5, 2007 and July 10-17, 2007 respectively. The NOAA ARs 10930 and 10960 were very active and produced X and M class flares respectively, along with many smaller X-ray flares. On the other hand, the NOAA ARs 10961 and 10963 were relatively less active and produced only very small (mostly A and B-class) flares. For this study we have used a large number of high resolution vector magnetograms obtained from Hinode (SOT/SP). The analysis shows that the peak X-ray flux of the most intense solar flare emanating from the active regions depends on the magnitude of the SASSA at the time of the flare. This finding of the existence of a lower limit of SASSA for a given class of X-ray flare will be very useful for space weather forecasting. We have also studied another non-potentiality parameter called mean weighted shear angle (MWSA) of the vector magnetograms along with SASSA. We find that the MWSA does not show such distinction as the SASSA for upper limits of GOES X-Ray flux of solar flares, however both the quantities show similar trends during the evolution of all active regions studied.
The non-potentiality (NP) of the solar magnetic fields is measured traditionally in terms of magnetic shear angle i.e., the angle between observed and potential field azimuth. Here, we introduce another measure of shear that has not been studied earlier in solar active regions, i.e. the one that is associated with the inclination angle of the magnetic field. This form of shear, which we call as the "dip-shear", can be calculated by taking the difference between the observed and potential field inclination. In this Letter, we study the evolution of dip-shear as well as the conventional twist-shear in a $δ$-sunspot using high-resolution vector magnetograms from {\it Hinode} space mission. We monitor these shears in a penumbral region located close to flare site during 12 and 13 December 2006. It is found that: (i) the penumbral area close to the flaring site shows high value of twist-shear and dip-shear as compared to other parts of penumbra, (ii) after the flare the value of dip-shear drops in this region while the twist-shear in this region tends to increase after the flare, (iii) the dip-shear and twist-shear are correlated such that pixels with large twist-shear also tend to exhibit large dip-shear, and (iv) the correlation between the twist-shear and dip-shear is tighter after the flare. The present study suggests that monitoring twist-shear during the flare alone is not sufficient but we need to monitor it together with dip-shear.
The accuracy of Milne-Eddington (ME) inversions, used to retrieve the magnetic field vector, depends upon the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the spectro-polarimetric observations. The SNR in real observations varies from pixel to pixel, therefore the accuracy of the field vector also varies over the map. The aim of this work is to study the effect of polarimetric noise on the inference of magnetic field vector and the magnetic non-potentiality of a real sunspot. To this end, we use Hinode SOT/SP vector magnetogram of a real sunspot NOAA 10933 as an input to generate synthetic Stokes profiles under ME model assumptions. We then add normally-distributed polarimetric noise of the level 0.5\% of continuum intensity to these synthetic profiles and invert them again using ME code. This process is repeated 100 times with different realizations of noise. It is found that within most of the sunspot area (> 90% area) the spread in the (i) field strength is less than 8 Gauss, (ii) field inclination is less than 1 degree, and (iii) field azimuth is less than 5 degrees. Further, we determine the uncertainty in the magnetic non-potentiality of a sunspot as determined by the force-free parameter alpha_g and Spatially Averaged Signed Shear Angle (SASSA). It is found that for the sunspot studied here these parameters are alpha_g = -3.5 +/- 0.37 (x 10^{-9} m^{-1}) and SASSA = -1.68 +/- 0.014 degrees. This suggests that the SASSA is a less dispersion non-potentiality parameter as compared to alpha_g. Further, we examine the effect of increasing noise levels viz. 0.01, 0.1, 0.5 and 1% of continuum intensity and find that SASSA is less vulnerable to noise as compared to alpha_g parameter.
The STEREO mission has been providing stereoscopic view of filament eruptions in EUV. The clearest view during a filament eruption is seen in He II 304 A observations. One of the main problems visualizing filament dynamics in He II 304 A is the strong background contrast due to surface features. We present a technique that removes background features and leaves behind only the filamentary structure, as seen by STEREO-A and B. The technique uses a pair of STEREO He II 304 A images observed simultaneously. The STEREO-B image is geometrically transformed to STEREO-A view so that the background images appear similar. Filaments being elevated structures, i.e., not lying on the same spherical surface as background features, do not appear similar in the transformed view. Thus, subtracting the two images cancels the background but leaves behind the filament structure. We apply this technique to study the dynamics of the filament eruption event of 22 May 2008, which was observed by STEREO and followed by several ground-based observatories participating in the Joint Observing Programme (JOP 178).
The Solar Vector Magnetograph (SVM) is a modern imaging spectropolarimeter installed at Udaipur Solar Observatory (USO). Earlier phases saw the development of the instrument using off-the-shelf components with in-house software development. Subsequently, improvements were done in the opto-mechanical design of the sub-systems and the telescope tracking system. The third phase of the instrument development saw three major improvements, these include: (i) installation of a web-camera based telescope guiding system, developed in-house, (ii) high-cadence spectropolarimetry using Liquid Crystal Variable Retarders and a fast CCD camera and (iii)inclusion of Na D1 line with regular photospheric Fe 630.2 nm line for chromospheric observations.
The force-free parameter $α$, also known as helicity parameter or twist parameter, bears the same sign as the magnetic helicity under some restrictive conditions. The single global value of $α$ for a whole active region gives the degree of twist per unit axial length. We investigate the effect of polarimetric noise on the calculation of global $α$ value and magnetic energy of an analytical bipole. The analytical bipole has been generated using the force-free field approximation with a known value of constant $α$ and magnetic energy. The magnetic parameters obtained from the analytical bipole are used to generate Stokes profiles from the Unno-Rachkovsky solutions for polarized radiative transfer equations. Then we add random noise of the order of 10$^{-3}$ of the continuum intensity (I$_{c}$) in these profiles to simulate the real profiles obtained by modern spectropolarimeters like Hinode (SOT/SP), SVM (USO), ASP, DLSP, POLIS, SOLIS etc. These noisy profiles are then inverted using a Milne-Eddington inversion code to retrieve the magnetic parameters. Hundred realizations of this process of adding random noise and polarimetric inversion is repeated to study the distribution of error in global $α$ and magnetic energy values. The results show that : (1). the sign of $α$ is not influenced by polarimetric noise and very accurate values of global twist can be calculated, and (2). accurate estimation of magnetic energy with uncertainty as low as 0.5% is possible under the force-free condition.
We have studied the evolution of magnetic helicity and chirality in an active region over three consecutive solar rotations. The region when it first appeared was named NOAA10923 and in subsequent rotations it was numbered NOAA 10930, 10935 and 10941. We compare the chirality of these regions at photospheric, chromospheric and coronal heights. The observations used for photospheric and chromospheric heights are taken from Solar Vector Magnetograph (SVM) and H_alpha imaging telescope of Udaipur Solar Observatory (USO), respectively. We discuss the chirality of the sunspots and associated H_alpha filaments in these regions. We find that the twistedness of superpenumbral filaments is maintained in the photospheric transverse field vectors also. We also compare the chirality at photospheric and chromospheric heights with the chirality of the associated coronal loops, as observed from the HINODE X-Ray Telescope.