Speaker
Description
Small-scale magnetic elements are ubiquitous in the solar photosphere, covering significant portions of the Sun’s visible surface and organizing into the so-called magnetic network. Advected and jostled by the turbulent plasma in which they are embedded, these elements constitute an ideal proxy to study the superficial flows of the Sun’s convective envelope. Furthermore, they act as a prime conduit for the transfer of wave energy from the lower layers of the solar atmosphere to the corona, contributing to the acceleration of the solar wind. Leveraging long-term, stable, and continuous observations of the Sun’s magnetic field from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager onboard NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, we tracked more than 100 million small-scale magnetic elements on the Sun’s surface using our novel Solar Feature Tracking suite. Spanning one and a half solar cycles, this represents the largest statistical analysis of its kind. Given the distinctly different properties of the sampled elements, we argue that their observed shared behaviours, modulated by the solar cycle, can only be attributed to a much closer interaction between scales than previously anticipated.