Astron. Nachr./AN 324, No. 4, 397 (2003) / DOI 10.1002/asna.

200310144

Flux tubes or fractal distributions on the nature of photospheric magnetic elds

J.O. S TENFLO1,2 and R. H OLZREUTER1
1 2

Institute of Astronomy, ETH Zentrum, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland Faculty of Mathematics & Science, University of Zurich

Received 30 October 2002; accepted 7 January 2003; published online 20 May 2003

1. Our Zeeman and Hanle goggles a ltered view of the world

Most of the magnetic-eld structures on the Sun still remain unresolved. The information about these unseen structures can only be indirect, via spectro-polarimetric signatures that we interpret in terms of some chosen idealized scheme. Thus the two-component framework was introduced about three decades ago to interpret the line-ratio signatures of kG magnetic elds (Steno 1973). The theoretical counterpart of the two-component model was the concept of strong-eld ux tubes embedded in an almost eld free environment. Since the typical lling factor for the ux tubes is only about 1 %, the question of the magnetic nature of the remaining 99 % remained unanswered. A decade later it was found that the signatures from the Hanle effect could be used as a tool to address this problem, and the concept of a turbulent magnetic eld with random orientations of the eld vectors was introduced for this purpose (Steno 1982). With this new interpretative scheme, the strength of the turbulent eld was found to be about 1030 G (Faurobert-Scholl 1993). The ux tubes and the turbulent elds are two idealized aspects of the same reality. When we use our Zeeman goggles (e.g. FTS or IR observations or Stokes inversion), the dominant contributions come from the unbalanced strong elds within the spatial resolution element. When we use the Hanle goggles, the dominant contribution comes from the region with the largest lling factor, and balanced polarities within the resolution element do not lead to cancellation as for the Zeeman effect. Therefore the Zeeman and Hanle effects provide us with ltered but complementary views of the real world. The ltered aspects reect to a large extent the properties of the goggles that we have used.

est spatial resolution with the Swedish La Palma telescope, we nd a fractal-like pattern with an astounding degree of self-similarity over the various scales, not only qualitatively in pattern appearance, but also quantitatively, in the probability distribution functions (PDF) for the vertical component of the magnetic eld (Steno & Holzreuter 2002, 2003). It is found that the PDF, after correction for instrumental noise, can be well represented, both for the large and small scales, by a Voigt function H(a, Bz /) with Doppler width 6 G. There is no hint in the data that this fractal-like selfsimilarity will come to an end any time soon, around the corner when we make the transition from the optically thick to thin scales. Furthermore, the theory of magnetoconvection suggests that the magnetic structuring will continue over another 46 orders of magnitude, down to the dissipation scales. The recent impressive progress in numerical simulation of magnetoconvection gives us guidance for what we may expect. These simulations (Stein & Nordlund 2002) neither show ux tubes nor anything similar to the idealized version of turbulent elds, but a complex pattern, which can be described in terms of continuous eld distributions (PDF) that are at least qualitatively similar to the Voigt functions that characterize the observed PDFs (Steno & Holzreuter 2002, 2003). This circumstance suggests that we should now make the transition from discrete to continuous distribution models when interpreting the Zeeman-Hanle polarimetric signatures of the spatially unresolved elds.

References
Faurobert-Scholl, M.: 1993, A&A 268, 765 Stein, R.F., Nordlund, A.: 2002, in: H. Sawaya-Lacoste (ed.), Magnetic Coupling of the Solar Atmosphere, ESA-SP 505, 83 Steno, J.O.: 1973, SoPh 32, 41 Steno, J.O.: 1982, SoPh 80, 209 Steno, J.O., Holzreuter, R.: 2002, in: H. Sawaya-Lacoste (ed.), Magnetic Coupling of the SolarAtmosphere, ESA-SP 505, 101 Steno, J.O., Holzreuter, R.: 2003, in: A.A. Pevtsov, H. Uitenbroek (eds.), Current Theoretical Models and Future High Resolution Solar Observations: Preparing for ATST, ASP Conf. Ser. 286, 169

2. Beyond ux tubes from discrete to continuous models

As we explore the empirical magnetic pattern over the scales that we can resolve, from full disk magnetograms to the highCorrespondence to: steno@astro.phys.ethz.ch

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