Evershed flow observed in neutral and singly ionized iron lines

¹ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
e-mail: khomenko@iac.es
² Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
³ Main Astronomical Observatory, NAS, 03680 Kyiv, Ukraine
⁴ Departament de Física, Universitat de les Illes Balears, 07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain

Received: 29 April 2015
Accepted: 1 October 2015

Abstract

The amplitudes of the Evershed flow are measured using pairs of carefully selected Fe i and Fe ii spectral lines that are close in wavelength and registered simultaneously. A sunspot belonging to the NOAA 11582 group was scanned using the spectrograph of the German Vacuum Tower Telescope (Observatorio del Teide, Tenerife). Velocities were extracted from intensity profiles using the λ-meter technique. The formation heights of the observed spectral lines were calculated using semi-empirical models of a bright and dark penumbral filament taking into account the sunspot location at the limb. Our objective is to compare azimuthally averaged amplitudes of the Evershed flow extracted from neutral and ion lines. We find measurable differences in the radial component of the flow. All five pairs of lines show the same tendency; the flow measured from the Fe i lines has an amplitude that is a few hundred ms^-1 larger than that of the Fe ii lines. This tendency is preserved at all photospheric heights and radial distances in the penumbra. We discuss the possible origin of this effect.