• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.46 no.2
• /
• pp.47.1-47.1
• /
• 2021

Transverse magnetohydrodynamic waves often called Alfvénic (or kink) waves have been often theoretically put forward to solve the outstanding problems of the solar corona like coronal heating, solar wind acceleration, and chemical abundance enhancement. Here we report the first spectroscopic detection of Alfvénic waves around a sunspot at chromospheric heights. By analyzing the spectra of the Hα line and Ca II 854.2 nm line, we determined line-of-sight velocity and temperature as functions of position and time. As a result, we identified transverse magnetohydrodynamic waves pervading the superpenumbral fibrils. These waves are characterized by the periods of 2.5 to 4.5 minutes, and the propagation direction parallel to the fibrils, the supersonic propagation speeds of 45 to 145 km s-1, and the close association with umbral oscillations and running penumbral waves in sunspots. Our results support the notion that the chromosphere around sunspots abounds with Alfvénic waves excited by the mode conversion of the upward-propagating slow magnetoacoustic waves.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.6
• /
• pp.12.1-12.1
• /
• 1981

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.34 no.1
• /
• pp.153.2-153.2
• /
• 2009

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.145-148
• /
• 2014

There was a research on the prolongation of solar cycle 23 by the solar cyclic variation of solar, interplanetary geomagnetic parameters by Oh & Kim (2013). They also suggested that the sunspot number cannot typically explain the variation of total solar irradiance any more. Instead of the sunspot number, a new index is introduced to explain the degree of solar activity. We have analyzed the frequency of sunspot appearance, the length of solar cycle, and the rise time to a solar maximum as the characteristics of solar cycle. Then, we have examined the predictability of solar activity by the characteristics of preceding solar cycle. We have also investigated the hemispheric variation of flare index for the periods that the leading sunspot has the same magnetic polarity. As a result, it was found that there was a good correlation between the length of preceding solar cycle and spotless days. When the length of preceding solar cycle gets longer, the spotless days increase. It is also shown that the shorter rise time to a solar maximum is highly correlated with the increase of sunspots at a solar maximum. Therefore, the appearance frequency of spotless days and the length of solar cycle are more significant than the general sunspot number as an index of declining solar activity. Additionally, the activity of flares leads in the northern hemisphere and is stronger in the hemisphere with leading sunspots in positive polarity than in the hemisphere with leading sunspots in negative polarity. This result suggests that it is necessary to analyze the magnetic polarity's effect on the flares and to interpret the period from the solar maximum to solar maximum as the definition of solar cycle.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.103-113
• /
• 2012

The ButterStar Observatory at the Dongducheon High School has been working for photographic observations of the Sun since October 16, 2002. In this study, we observed the Sun at the ButterStar observatory for 3,364 days from October 16, 2002 to December 31, 2011, and analyzed the photographic sunspot data obtained in 1,965 days. The correction factor $K_b$ for the entire observing period is 0.9519, which is calculated using the linear least square method to the relationship between the daily sunspot number, $R_B$, and the daily international relative sunspot number, $R_i$. The yearly correction factor calculated for each year varies slightly from year to year and shows a trend to change along the solar cycle. The correction factor is larger during the solar maxima and smaller during the solar minima in general. This implies that the discrepancy between a relative sunspot number, R, and the daily international relative sunspot number, $R_i$, can be reduced by using a yearly correction factor. From 2002 to 2008 in solar cycle 23, 35.4% and 64.6% of sunspot groups and 35.1% and 64.9% of isolated sunspots in average occurred in the northern hemisphere and in the southern hemisphere, respectively, and from 2008 to 2011 in solar cycle 24, 61.3% and 38.7% of sunspot groups and 65.0% and 35.0% of isolated sunspots were observed, respectively. This result shows that the occurrence frequency for each type of sunspot group changes along the solar cycle development, which can be interpreted as the emerging and decaying process of sunspot groups is different depending on the phase of solar cycle. Therefore, it is considered that a following study would contribute to the efforts to understand the dependence of the dynamo mechanism on the phase of solar cycle.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.20
• /
• pp.17.2-17.2
• /
• 1995

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.29 no.1
• /
• pp.9-18
• /
• 1996

We have analyzed vector magnetograms and $H\beta$ filtergrams of two sunspot groups, one in a growing phase and the other in a decaying phase. In this study, the temporal evolution of their magnetic morphology has been investigated in association with solar activity. The morphological variations of the growing and decaying phase of these sunspots revealed in detail the coalescence of small spots into a large spot and the fragmentation of a large spot into many small spots, respectively. Numerous small flares were detected in the spot group during the decaying phase. This seems to be intimately associated with the shearing motions of many spots with different polarities created by fragmentation of a large sunspot. The magnetic flux and the average shear angle are found to be substantially reduced during the decaying phase, especially in the course of the flarings. This implies that the decaying phase of the sunspot is, to some degree, involved with magnetic field cancellation. The growing spot group has not shown any large activities, but numerous small spots have grown into a typical bipolar sunspot.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.89-98
• /
• 1993

Magnetostatic models of starspots of late type main sequence stars$(G5V\~K5V)$ have been constructed to investigate their physical characteristics by using the similarity law suggested by Schluter and Temesvary(1958) and later employed by Deinzer(1965) and Yun(1968). The starspots are assumed to be single, circular and in horizontal magnetostatic equilibrium. In the present study we considered only those model spots whose area covers less than $12\%$ of the entire stellar surface as suggested by observations. The computed surface field strength of our model spots ranges from $10^3$\;to\;several\;10^3$ gauss and their magnetic flux is found to be $10\~100$ times that of sunspots. The field strength is sensitive to spectral type, which increases with later spectral type. In contrast to the field strength, the area of starspots depends strongly on the total magnetic flux. Finally, it is noted that the computed field strength of model spots belonging to $G0V\~G5V$ falls below the equipartition field strength at their parent stellar surface unless the coverage is less than $2\%$. This suggests that the observed spot on $G0V\~G5V$ stars is likely to be a group of small starspots.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.41 no.2
• /
• pp.41.2-41.2
• /
• 2016

We perform three statistical studies on the physical properties and oscillations in the confined plasma such as a photospheric sunspot and confined coronal loop. From the statistical studies on the sunspot umbra and its oscillation, we find that (1) the total magnetic flux inside the umbra for the three groups increases proportionally with the powers of the umbral area and the power indices in the three groups significantly differ from each other; (2) the three groups have different characteristics in their umbral area, intensity, magnetic field strength, and Doppler velocity as well as their relationships; (3) the mean frequency of the umbral oscillations increases with the umbral mean magnetic field strength and height; (4) the time delay of the core intensity of Fe I absorption line relative to the continuum which are de-convolved with the frequency range higher than 3.5 mHz is mostly positive, implying that the photospheric umbral oscillations are likely upwardly propagating; (5) the umbral mean plasma beta ranges approximately 0.6-1.1 and does not vary significantly from pores to mature sunspots. From the comparative study on the quasi-periodic pulsations (QPPs) in the solar and stellar flares, (6) we find that the power index of the periods scaling the damping times observed in the stellar QPPs is consistent with that observed in the solar QPPs, suggesting that physical mechanisms responsible for the stellar QPPs are likely the magneto-hydrodynamic oscillation of solar coronal loops.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.39 no.1
• /
• pp.75.1-75.1
• /
• 2014

Sunspot penumbrae show supersonic downflow patches along the periphery. These patches are believed to be the return channels of the Evershed flow. There was previous study to investigate their structure in detail using Hinode SOT/SP observations (M. van Noort et al. 2013) but their data sample was only two sunspots. To make general description it needs to check more sunspot sample. We selected 242 downflow patches of 17 sunspots using Hinode SOT/SP observations from 2006 to 2012. Height-dependent maps of atmospheric parameters of these downflows was produced by using HeLix which was height dependent LTE inversion code of Stokes profiles. The inversion code at high resolution allows for the accurate determination of small scale structures. The recovered atmospheric structure of three layers indicates that regions with very high downflow velocities contain very strong magnetic fields reaching up to 7kG. The higher downflow velocity patches have bigger patch size. Magnetic fields of downflow patches are more vertical while penumbra shows horizontal field and neighbor of downflow patches have opposite polarity. Temperature of downflow patches at highest layer have more strong value than penumbra at deepest layer. The direction of velocity of downflow patches at highest layer have two branches. These result shows that we can expect some heating precess in the middle of layer.