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Paper: Emerging Flux Tube Geometry and Sunspot Proper Motions
Volume: 118, First Advances in Solar Physics Euroconference: Advances in the Physics of Sunspots
Page: 81
Authors: van Driel-Gesztelyi, Lidia
Abstract: As sunspots appear at the intersection of rising flux tubes with the photosphere, the observed proper motions of a bipolar sunspot pair is a good indicator of the geometry of the underlying emerging flux tube. An emerging bipole caused by a simple symmetric potential flux tube should display a symmetric divergence of the two spots in diametrically opposite directions, while the proper motions of bipolar spot-pairs belonging to tilted or/and twisted (non-potential) emerging flux tubes are more complicated: asymmetric, not diametrically opposite and may follow a curved pattern. Observation of such motions may help to prove that emerging flux tubes are tilted and frequently twisted, in good agreement with predictions by recent simulation studies.
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