Doubts about the crucial role of the rising-tube mechanism in the formation of sunspot groups

Some preliminary processing results are presented for a dataset obtained with the Solar Optical Telescope on the Hinode satellite. The idea of the project is to record, nearly simultaneously, the full velocity and magnetic-field vectors in growing active regions and sunspot groups at a photospheric level. Our ultimate aim is to elaborate observational criteria to distinguish between the manifestations of two mechanisms of sunspot-group formation — the rising of an X-shaped flux tube of a strong magnetic field and the in situ amplification and structuring of magnetic field by convection (the convective mechanism is briefly described). Observations of a young bipolar subregion developing within AR 11313 were carried out on 9–10 October 2011. During each 2-h observational session, 5576-Å filtergrams and Dopplergrams were obtained at a time cadence of 2 min, and one or two 32-min-long spectropolarimetric fast-mode scans were done. Based on the series of filtergrams, the trajectories of corks are computed, using a technique similar to but more reliable than local correlation tracking (LCT), and compared with the magnetic maps. At this stage of the investigation, only the vertical magnetic field and the horizontal flows are used for a qualitative analysis. According to our preliminary findings, the velocity pattern in the growing active region has nothing to do with a spreading flow on the scale of the entire bipolar region, which could be expected if a tube of strong magnetic field emerged. No violent spreading flows on the scale of the entire growing magnetic region can be identified. Instead, normal mesogranular and supergranular flows are preserved. Signs of small-scale structuring of the magnetic field can be detected in the area where new spots develop, and signs of the presence of separatrices between the magnetic polarities can be found, such that the surface flows converge to but not diverge from these separatrix curves. The observed scenario of evolution seems to agree with Bumba’s inference that the development of an active region does not entail the destruction of the existing convective-velocity field. The convective mechanism appears to be better compatible with observations than the rising-tube mechanism. In the umbras of the well-developed sunspots, flows converging to the umbra centres are revealed. Spreading streams are present around these spots. 2014 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.