Abstract
Time-sequential high quality photographs of the photospheric granule on a quiet region of the disc center obtained at the Pic-du-Midi Observatory by Kawaguchi are analyzed. The size variation of individual granules in the area of 54″×52″ on the photosphere are traced over a period of 4 min. The granules are classified according to their morphological features as follows. (1) Active granules, they repeat the expansion and the fragmentation. (2) Quiet granules, they do not alter the size noticeably during the observed time span. (3) Declining granules, they disappear without further fragmentation or merging.
The distribution of active granules on the photosphere reveals a presence of a cellular pattern. The relationships between the cellular pattern and the brightness on the quiet photosphere are investigated. The results show that there is a good spatial correlation between them. The autocorrelation analysis shows a kind of periodicity on the photospheric intensity and its mean wavelengths are 11″.3. The size of the cellular pattern is comparable, in magnitude, to that of mesogranulation found by Novemberet al. (1981) on the velocitygram obtained at the Sacramento Peak Observatory. Then the cellular pattern revealed by the chain of granules in the present study may be bentatively identified as the mesogranulation. The possible physical connection between the mesogranulation and the clumpy assemblage of active granules is briefly discussed.
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Oda, N. Morphological study of the solar granulation. Sol Phys 93, 243–255 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02270837
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02270837