Surface Flow of Magnetogram Features
Harrison P. Jones
NASA/GSFC, Laboratory for Astronomy and Solar Physics Southwest Solar
Station c/o NSO PO Box 26732 Tucson, AZ 85726 hjones@noao.edu (520) 318-8354
Sequences of once-per-day NSO/Kitt Peak magnetograms for many active regions
show intriguing apparent motions which suggest that at least some active-region
dynamics are controlled by deep-seated driving forces different from those
which govern magnetoconvection. However, quantification of the image kinematics
of once-per-day data at active-region scales has proved unexpectedly difficult
because of the sparse sampling rate. MDI magnetograms will have cadence
and continuity much better suited to these studies. I propose to select
a few active regions for study during their passage across the disk and
will apply techniques developed for NSO/KP data. In particular, I would
like to explore the solution of the optical flow problem for MDI magnetogram
sequences by multiscale regularization as outlined at the Asilomar Workshop
and compare this technique with other methods such as local correlation
tracking. This will necessarily involve cooperation and collaboration with
several other investigators (e.g., Hurlburt, Simon, Strous, Shine, Tarbell)
who will be conducting similar studies with complementary techniques. I
will also try to compare results with those derived from GONG and NSO/KP
data.
MDI Data Requirements: I will need several full-disk magnetograms per day
for at least two consecutive weeks. One such period should be adequate for
initial testing of the technique. Assuming success, I will probably request
data for several selected rotations.
No additional text was submitted for this proposal.