The Decay of Two Adjacent Sunspots Associated with Moving Magnetic Features

Abstract

The relationship between the decay of sunspots and moving magnetic features (MMFs) plays an important role in understanding the evolution of active regions. We present observations of two adjacent sunspots, the gap between them, and a lot of MMFs propagating from the gap and the sunspots' outer edges in NOAA Active Region 13023. The MMFs are divided into two types based on their magnetic field inclination angle: vertical (0° < γ < 45°) and horizontal (45° ≤ γ < 90°) MMFs (V-MMFs and H-MMFs, respectively). The main results are as follows: (1) the mean magnetic flux decay rates of the two sunspots are −1.7 × 1020 and −1.4 × 1020 Mx day−1; (2) the magnetic flux generation rate of all MMFs is calculated to be −1.9 × 1021 Mx day−1, which is on average 5.6 times higher than the total magnetic flux loss rate of the sunspots; (3) the magnetic flux of V-MMFs (including a pore separated from the sunspots) is 1.4 times larger than the total lost magnetic flux of the two sunspots, and in a later stage when the pore has passed through the reference ellipse, the magnetic flux generation rate of the V-MMFs is almost the same as the magnetic flux loss rate of the sunspots; and (4) within the gap, the magnetic flux of V-MMFs is one-third of the total magnetic flux. Few V-MMFs stream out from the sunspots at the nongap region. All observations suggest that MMFs with vertical magnetic fields are closely related to the disintegration of the sunspot, and most of the MMFs from the gap may originate directly from the sunspot umbra.