J.-M. Malherbe1 - Th. Roudier2 - P. Mein1 - J. Moity1 - R. Muller2
1 - LESIA, Observatoire de
Paris, Section de Meudon, 92195 Meudon Cedex, France
2 - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique, Observatoire Midi Pyrénées, 57 Avenue d'Azereix, PB
826, 65008 Tarbes Cedex, France
Submitted 6 May 2004 / Accepted 23 July 2004
Abstract
We present the first results obtained with a new Ferroelectric
Liquid
Crystal (FLC) polarimeter operating with the spectrograph of the Pic du Midi Turret Dome,
since September 2003. We observed the solar granulation around
active region NOAA 0459 with the Multichannel Subtractive Double Pass
(MSDP) operating mode and analysed the circular polarization of the
Na D1 589.6 nm spectral line in terms of longitudinal magnetic
fields in a 2D field of view (
arcsec). Image quality was
fairly good and limited to 0.4 arcsec due to the pixel sampling. This
observation reveals the presence of magnetic concentrations of
several hundred Gauss which are mainly located in the
intergranular lanes. Data analysis performed at two different
optical depths (line core and line wings) also suggests that
magnetic lines are curved and diverge with increasing altitude.
Key words: Sun: photosphere - Sun: granulation - Sun: magnetic fields - instrumentation: polarimeters
Most of the magnetic flux crossing the photosphere in the quiet Sun is concentrated in small elements (i.e. flux tubes) which are at the limit of resolution of the present ground-based solar telescopes. Up to now, in order to benefit from the best spatial resolution on magnetic structures, visible-light signatures or "proxies'' of the magnetic field have been extensively used. These proxies refer to small bright features observed as field patches or as small bright points (Muller & Roudier 1984; Van Ballegooijen et al. 1998; Berger & Title 2001; Nisenson et al. 2003). The magnetic flux tubes are dynamic features, and their inclination relative to the line of sight varies in time (Steiner et al. 1998). In consequence, brightness fluctuations up to the extinction of the proxy may occur and can be explained by geometrical effects which do not allow us to observe continually the proxy in intensity.
Thus, the study of the evolution of magnetic elements and their interaction with convection requires magnetograms with high spatial resolution and fair sensitivity (better than 20 Gauss or 0.002 Tesla). Some previous works in the measurement of the magnetic field at high spatial resolution have been performed by different authors. Simultaneous direct observation of white light proxies and magnetic fields allowed them to establish the link between these two quantities for the solar flux tubes (Muller et al. 2000; Keller 1992). Zhang et al. (1998) found that most of the bright features such as filigree in photospheric filtergrams are related to corresponding magnetic features. These magnetic concentrations show fast changes within several minutes. Stolpe & Kneer (2000) found weak fluxes almost everywhere in the granular pattern with a preference (65%) for the intergranular spaces. The speckle observations performed by Koschinsky et al. (2001) of the small-scale magnetic structures revealed that, in the quiet sun, the granular dynamics dominates the time evolution of the magnetic elements. The magnetic flux emerges on the smallest resolvable scale length (less than 1 Mm), and its dispersion by granular motions was confirmed by De Pontieu (2002). Very recently, Dominguez Cerdeña et al. (2003) confirmed using speckle restoration and high spatial resolution magnetograms (0.5 arcsec) that 45% of the observed area is covered by patches with a magnetic field above the noise. More precisely they suspected the presence of structures with field strengths larger than 1000 Gauss, which could occupy only 2% of the surface. The observations (Dominguez Cerdeña et al. 2003) and the numerical simulations (Cattaneo 1999; Emonet & Cattaneo 2001; Schrijver & Zwann 2000) pointed out that most of the magnetic field could be generated by local dynamo. This results shows the great interest is learning, at high spatial resolution, the properties and the dynamics of the magnetic field and its interaction with the solar turbulent convection.
We present in this paper then new capabilities of high resolution solar magnetometry obtained with the spectrograph of the Pic du Midi Turret Dome, which allows us to get magnetograms and dopplergrams approaching the limit of the resolution of the refractor.
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Figure 1: The optical beam between the primary focus F1 and the secondary focus F2 (the 50 cm refractor is located on the optical axis at left). |
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The Pic du Midi Turret Dome is a 50 cm aperture refractor (focal length of 6.45 m at the primary focus F1) supported by an equatorial mount. The beam has a cylindrical symmetry along the optical axis. Polarization analysis is achieved before transmission to the spectrograph by a flat mirror (Fig. 1). Therefore instrumental polarization is minimized. The resolving power (including the refractor and the spectrograph) is 0.3 arcsec in the yellow part of the spectrum. The primary image is magnified between 5 to 15 times at the secondary focus F2 where the entrance window of the spectrograph is located, according to the focus of the magnification lens. We used a new prototype of liquid crystal polarimeter between focus F1 and F2. It was used for the first time in September 2003. The polarimeter receives white light and has the following elements (Fig. 1):
We use the 8 m mirror spectrograph in MSDP mode as
described by Mein (1981, 1991, 2002). In this system, the thin slit
usually used in spectrographs is replaced by a 2D entrance aperture,
covering in our case a solar area of
arcsec with the intermediate
magnification lens that we used (equivalent focal length of 65 m at focus F2). The dispersive element
is a grating (300 rules/mm, blaze angle
)
working at order 10 for Sodium lines. The order is isolated by an interference
filter (10 nm bandwidth). The light is dispersed two times by the
grating. At the first pass (the dispersion is about 4.2 mm/Å), a
multi slit beam shifter device selects and shifts simultaneously 11 2D channels (the distance between channels
is equal to 0.6 mm, this constant governs the spectral resolution of
observations, i.e. 144 mÅ here). At the second pass,
dispersion is subtracted so that 11 non monochromatic images of the solar area form at the focus of
the spectrograph (see Roudier et al. 2003, and Fig. 3), in 11 spectral ranges separated by 144 mÅ.
The MSDP image obtained at the focus of the spectrograph is then
reduced to form on a CCD camera from LaVision (Germany) with temperature control
(Peltier cooling at
C). The
pixel size on the CCD was 0.2 arcsec in our setup.
Each pixel can accumulate
up to 25 000 electrons corresponding to a dynamic of 12 bits (readout
noise of 7 electrons). In
general, we work in the continuum at 0.75 times the saturation level giving
approximately a signal to noise ratio slightly better than 100 or a
photometric accuracy better than 10-2. The exposure time
is the shortest as possible in order to freeze the turbulence and
was 30 ms during our run.
Our polarimetric observations consisted of shooting sequentially as fast as possible pairs of MSDP images I+V, I-V. The modulator, in theory, is able to switch between two states of polarization at a frequency of a few KHz. However, we are limited by the speed of our CCD camera and data acquisition system, which allowed us to work at the maximum speed of 4 images/s, including modulation. In order to have the possibility of image selection and to improve the magnetic sensitivity, we make, in practice, on the same field of view bursts of couples I+V, I-V, as fast as possible. In September 2003, we recorded bursts of 10 couples (as we were limited by memory) and we present in this paper the analysis we made after image selection (best image quality), and after data accumulation and destretching (best magnetic sensitivity).
The flat field is difficult at the Turret Dome because the spectrograph is attached to the refractor and changes position with time, producing small mechanical shifts. That is the reason why we do not practice this as with telescopes with non moving spectrographs. We automatically incorporate for the flat field in the beam, at the pupil location (Fig. 1), a defocusing lens together with a prism in order to shift the field of view by about 1 or 2 arcmin alternatively north and south of the observed area. This process has no influence on the pupil and is made systematically for each set of observations. The two flat images are averaged in the data processing and are of course taken in the two states of polarization.
In order to retrieve with a good accuracy (better than half a pixel) the borders of the channels, corresponding to the entrance window of the spectrograph, we also take a field stop image for each set of observations. This is done by automatically replacing the interference filter by a neutral density filter, in order to remove the observed spectral line from the field of view.
Hence, an elementary set of data consists of a burst of couples I+V, I-V of the same region of interest, plus two flat field images and a field stop image obtained to the north and south, also in the two states of polarization. A complete sequence is a series of elementary sets of data obtained periodically, and terminated by a dark current image.
We observed active region NOAA 0459 (West 20, South 10) on 2003 September 19, with fairly good seeing conditions. We made several
series of bursts and selected the best one. We have a set of 10 couples I+V, I-V, flat field, field stop and dark current. There
is a sunspot in the middle of the field of view (
arcsec). The observed region is unfortunately not located in the
arcmin square area of SOHO/MDI but was visible only on full
disk magnetograms (Fig. 2). It appears as a bipolar
region, but we had only the northern part in the field of the MSDP
(Fig. 3), representing only one polarity (the negative
one). The entrance window has a direction parallel to the
geographic East West direction, and makes a small angle with the
solar East West direction (P angle of
). The sampling
pixel was 0.2 arcsec on the CCD detector with 30 ms exposure
time. A GIF movie, showing the 20 images of the burst with
alternate polarizations, that we analyse here, is available at
http://helios.obspm.fr/malherbe/AA20030919/msdp.gif, and clearly
shows the Zeeman effect on the sunspot as an oscillation of the
spectral line.
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Figure 2:
SOHO/MDI magnetogram on 2003 September 19 at 11:17 UT, showing
NOAA 0459 (part of the full disk magnetogram, size of
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Data analysis was performed using the standard MSDP software developed by P. Mein and available on line at the BASS2000 national data base (see http://bass2000.bagn.obs-mip.fr). The following steps are made for each state of polarization:
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Figure 3:
MSDP image obtained on 2003 September 19 at 09:07 UT, showing
the northern part of NOAA 0459 and the 11 simultaneous channels with the
NaD1 589.6 nm spectral line. The global wavelength
shift between each channel is 144 mÅ. The channels are not monochromatic,
and the wavelength increases, inside each channel, from the left to
the right. The pixel size is 0.2 arcsec and
the field of view
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Such images do not contain any spectral lines (as the interference filter is removed) and are used for the precise detection of the borders of the 11 channels, for subsequent superposition. The precision is better than 0.5 pixel (0.1 arcsec). The geometry determined at this stage is applied to flat field images and to observations.
Flat field images are performed using defocusing lenses in the pupil. They provide, for each pixel of the solar area, a reference profile of the NaD1 line. Flat field images are also used to determine the curvature of the spectrum, and some optical defaults such as the presence of transversalium or transmission differences between the 11 channels.
The line profile (with 11 points separated by 144 mÅ) is determined
for each point of the field of
view, and compared to the corresponding reference profile
derived from the flat field. Using the bisector method based on searching
the points of equal intensity in the profile,
separated by 2
,
we can define the intensity fluctuation
in NaD1
in comparison to intensity found with
the same band in the reference profile. Hence, we are able to compute several maps of
intensity fluctuations:
line centre,
144 mÅ (below inflexion points), and
288 mÅ (above inflexion
points). The middle of the band defines the position of the line in
wavelength; the displacement between the current and reference profile provides the
line shift in NaD1
.
As for intensity
fluctuations, we obtain maps of line shifts at
144 mÅ (below inflexion points)
and
288 mÅ (above inflexion points). Thus, images of
the continuum were produced using the bluest channel of the
MSDP (channel 11), but, when considering a single channel, one gets
a non-monochromatic picture in which the wavelength varies along
the small dimension (direction of dispersion). Line
displacements can be interpreted in terms of Dopplershifts (velocities) or
in terms of Zeeman splitting (magnetic field).
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Figure 4:
MSDP image in the
blue continuum of the NaD1 line, corresponding to channel 11 (this
means that this image is not strictly monochromatic). The pixel
size is 0.15 arcsec and the field of view is
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Figure 5:
Intensities in NaD1 |
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A second approach consists of determining the spatial shift between continuum images of I+V and I-V couples, because the solar granulation is clearly visible; the precision is a fraction of a pixel, using cross correlation. We applied the shift measured between the continuum images to the spectral line displacements before velocity and magnetic field calculation.
But a much better result, in terms of signal to noise ratio, is obtained with both correlation and destretching between continuum images, and then applying the results to line displacement maps; we used for that purpose the code developed by November (1986) and modified by Vigneau (private communication). This method has also a great advantage: it is possible to use all images of a burst to increase the magnetic sensitivity by summing data after destretching.
Although the sampling pixel size is 0.2 arcsec (145 km), we used in the data processing an output pixel of only 0.15 arcsec (110 km) in order to limit the loss of quality due to numerous geometrical and spectral interpolations done by the software. Figure 4 shows the blue continuum of the field of view obtained from channel 11, and exhibits clearly the sunspot and the granular pattern around it. We used this image as the reference image of the bursts of 10 couples I+V, I-V, and in the following, cross correlation and destretching between continuum images were performed using this reference frame.
We show in Fig. 5 the intensity obtained in
mÅ (the granulation disappears, as expected, near the line
core) and
288 mÅ (close to the continuum height).
According to Roudier et al. (2001), the difference of altitude
between these two positions in the spectral line is of the order
of 160 km, a value obtained from modelling the radiative transfer
of NaD1 through the VAL-C atmospheric stratification with no
magnetic field. This first approximation value is of the order of 1.5 pixel (0.22 arcsec). We do not see, contrarily to Roudier et al. (2003), numerous bright points (filigree) at
144 mÅ,
probably because they had a better spatial resolution and sampling
(0.13 arcsec instead of 0.20 arcsec). Indeed, Topka et al.
(1992), and Title & Berger (1996) studied bright point contrasts
in continuum wavelengths and suggested that flux tubes could be
smaller than 0.15 arcsec; the resolution of our observations may
be too low to distinguish with good contrast flux tubes in
intensity, but sufficient to see their signature in terms of
magnetic flux.
Figure 6 shows the raw radial velocities obtained in
mÅ and
288 mÅ, resulting from the sum of
line shifts derived from sequential I+V and I-V observations.
Velocities exhibit the classical 5 min oscillation pattern (which
we were not able to filter, because we do not have a temporal
sequence); the solar granulation is no longer visible with
increasing height (as at
144 mÅ).
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Figure 6:
Radial velocities in NaD1 |
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Figure 7:
Line of sight magnetic
field B// in NaD1 |
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Figure 8:
Line of sight magnetic
field B// in NaD1 |
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Figures 7 and 8 show the line of sight
magnetic field obtained in
mÅ and
288 mÅ, resulting from different methods which are described in
detail in the following:
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Figure 9:
The magnetic field measured at |
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Figure 10:
Cross section in x (solid line) and y (dotted line)
directions (parallel to the edges of the field of view) of the
magnetic field B// in NaD1 |
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Figure 11:
Isocontours of the
line of sight magnetic field (125 G, 250 G, 500 G), negative
values in black and positive values in white, superimposed to the
continuum intensity (MSDP channel 11). The sunspot is outside the
represented area (at left). The size of this reduced field of view
is
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The noise of the data was estimated from the burst of 10 I+V, I-V pairs obtained in a few seconds, so representing several
realizations of the same event. We consider for that purpose that
the 10 maps of B// can be superimposed, after cross correlation
and destretching by reference to the first frame of the burst. We
computed the standard deviation
of the observed magnetic
field B//; it is on average over the full area of about 50 Gauss
at
144 mÅ and 130 Gauss at
288 mÅ. This error
bar includes all instrumental and seeing effects such as
turbulence which were not corrected by destretching. This means
that, if we take a confidence interval of 68% (respectively 95%), the error on the average magnetic field derived from the
burst of 10 I+V, I-V couples is about
(respectively
), i.e. numerically 16 Gauss
(respectively 32 Gauss) at
144 mÅ (see
Fig. 7, bottom).
We have plotted in Fig. 11 isocontours of the magnetic
field superimposed on the continuum, only for the region located
West of the sunspot, where the granulation pattern is clearly
visible. The figure reveals that magnetic elements are
preferentially located in intergranular lanes, which confirms
previous results. But we did not find evidence of very good
correlation between bright points (such as the filigree) visible
in the line at
144 mÅ and magnetic elements (see
Fig. 9, left), as already noticed in previous works
(Zhang et al. 1998; Keller 1992). In particular, Keller (1992)
found that magnetic features larger than 0.4 arcsec in size tend
to be darker than their surroundings. Muller et al. (2000) and
Zhang et al. (1998) found that the bright filigree is related to
magnetic features, but it is not generally cospatial. However,
Fig. 9 shows that magnetic concentrations are
preferentially associated with downflows and intensities brighter
than the median, when measured at the same band in the spectral
line.
We have obtained observations of the line of sight magnetic field over a 2D field of view at high spatial resolution (0.4 arcsec) with the new FLC polarimeter installed at the Pic du Midi Turret Dome. We focused our attention on the granular pattern in the vicinity of active region NOAA 0459. We found many magnetic concentrations, mainly located in the intergranular network. We measured magnetic fields of a few hundred Gauss, contrarily to Dominguez Cerdeña et al. (2003), but they were observing in the internetwork, far from active regions. The MSDP technique allowed us to compute magnetograms at two different levels of altitude. It appears clearly that the magnetic fields measured in the NaD1 wings are stronger than those obtained from line centre, suggesting that magnetic lines diverge with increasing height. We noticed that magnetic concentrations are not strictly superimposed at the two altitudes, suggesting that magnetic lines could be inclined or curved. We noticed also that magnetic concentrations are almost systematically associated with downflows in the range of a few hundred meters per second and often appear bright near the line centre only. On the contrary, we were not able to confirm any relationship between magnetic concentrations and bright points in the continuum, for the reason that we did not find, at the spatial resolution of 0.4 arcsec, clear evidence of such points. Higher resolution is probably required, as suggested by Roudier et al. (2003) showing evidence of numerous bright points in non polarimetric NaD1 MSDP observations, but with a smaller pixel than the one we have here.
During the 2004 campaign, we will perform new polarimetric observations of the granular pattern with a better spatial sampling (0.13 arcsec instead of 0.20 arcsec) in order to be able to approach the theoretical resolving power of the 50 cm refractor. Our objective is now to get a temporal sequence, with 45 s resolution, in order to study evolution of the dynamics and the magnetometry of solar granulation. With the new computer system installed in December 2003 at the Turret Dome, we now have the possibility to make bursts of 100 pairs of MSDP images (I+V, I-V) at high observing cadence (8 images/s). This new facility will increase the efficiency of image selection and also will have an impact on magnetic sensitivity. For instance, our aim is to reach a sensitivity better than 10 Gauss from data analysis and destretching of bursts of 100 pairs obtained in less than 45 s. We also plan to incorporate speckle restoration of long polarimetric bursts, following Dominguez Cerdeña et al. (2003).
We know that our first version polarimeter has many defaults and limitations which need to be corrected and improved in the future, such as chromatism and temperature variation, producing in particular moving fringes. Also, this focal device can measure only some components of the Stokes vector (I and V with the static quarter wave plate, I and Q without it). For this reason, we will develop a second version of our FLC polarimeter, including two modulators, which will be able to sequentially measure the full Stokes vector (I, Q, U, V). We will also increase the accuracy of measurements with the use of temperature controlled variable retarders, the retardation being exactly adjusted to the wavelength of the observed spectral line.
The spectral resolution of observations will be improved in the future. In the MSDP technique, it is limited by the resolution of the multi slit beam shifter located on the spectrum. With a new optical design, we will reduce the wavelength shift between consecutive channels to only 60 mÅ, allowing observations of various chromospheric or photospheric lines, such as Fe I 630.1 nm or Ca I 610.3 nm.
A Power Point file, presenting with better quality some of the figures of this paper, together with additional animations, is available at the following URL:
http://helios.obspm.fr/malherbe/AA20030919/AA20030919.ppt
Acknowledgements
We want to express our gratitude to Ch. Coutard, engineer in optics, for his invaluable help in the optical setup of the polarimeter and the MSDP spectrograph, and his contribution to observations. We are also indebted to M. Lafon and F. Grimaud for their help in data processing. The spectrograph was designed by Dr. Z. Mouradian under the auspices of Observatoire de Paris and INSU/CNRS. We wish also to thank the anonymous referee for helpful comments and suggestions that improved the manuscript.This work was supported by Observatoire de Paris, Observatoire Midi Pyrénées, CNRS (UMR 5572 and UMR 8109) and the Programme National Soleil Terre (PNST). Special thanks are due to the Pic du Midi Observatory staff for their technical assistance during the observing run.