Study of the size-flux relation of pores and spots

Abstract

Using the vector magnetic field data from the Huairou Solar Observing Station of National Astronomical Observatories, a statistical study on the size-flux relation of photospheric magnetic features without any assumption is given. The selected data here include mature sunspots, as well as protosunspot (with a partial penumbra) and pore. We studied not only their size-flux relations of pore, protosunspot and mature sunspot, but also that of umbra and penumbra of the mature sunspots. The size-flux relationship of mature sunspots and their umbra and penumbra is found to be in different indexes of power-law. No evident relations are found between size and flux of the pores and protosunspots. We found that there is a threshold of 1×10¹² Wb or (3–4.03) × 10⁷ km² for the transition from a pore to a protospot. Such results may be useful for understanding the physical conditions and dynamical processes of magnetic flux tubes in solar plasma during sunspot’s formation. In addition, their characteristic size is also given.