The coronal sidereal rotation rate as a function of latitude for each year, extending from 1992 to 2001 for soft X-ray images and from 1998 - 2005 for radio images are obtained. The present analysis reveals that the equatorial rotation rate of the corona is comparable to the photosphere and the chromosphere, However, at the higher latitudes, the corona rotation quite differently than the photosphere and chromosphere. The latitude differential obtained by both radio and X-ray images is quite variable throughout the period of the study. The equatorial rotation period seems to vary almost systematically with sunspot numbers which indicates its dependence on the phases of the solar activity cycle.

Photometric images are used to measure the temperature of sunspots at different wavelengths. Images at 672.3 nm and 472.3 nm are obtained at the San Fernando Observatory using the CFDT2 (2.5” x 2.5” pixels). Images at 607.1 nm and 409.4 nm are obtained by the PSPT at Mauna Loa Observatory. Monochromatic intensities are converted to temperatures as in Steinegger et al (1990). The pixel by pixel temperature for a sunspot is converted into a bolometric contrast for that sunspot according to Chapman et al (1994). Sunspot temperatures, i.e., their bolometric contrasts, are calculated from both red (672.3 nm) and blue wavelengths (472.3 nm) and compared.

Today's Solar Physics comes across of different type of fine structures in solar atmosphere including umbral dots and penumbral grains in sunspots, and G-band bright points in quiet Sun. In this report, we present evidence that umbral dots, penumbral grains, and, possibly, G band bright points are related to a common type of features in solar atmosphere magnetic flux tubes.

We discuss recent progress in the helioseismic probing of the subsurface structure of solar magnetic regions. To simulate the interaction of helioseismic waves with magnetic fields and thermal perturbations we use a simple model that is translation invariant in the horizontal directions, has a realistic stratification in the vertical direction, and has physically consistent boundary conditions for the waves at the upper and lower boundaries of the computational domain. Using this model we generate synthetic helioseismic data and subsequently measure time-distance travel times. We evaluate a model for the wave-speed perturbation below sunspots that replaces the sound speed in a non-magnetic model by the fast-mode speed from a magnetic model; our results indicate that this approach is unlikely to be useful in modeling wave-speed perturbations in sunspots. We develop and test an inversion algorithm for inferring the sound-speed perturbation in magnetic regions. We show that this algorithm retrieves the correct sound-speed perturbation only when the sensitivity kernels employed account for the effects of the magnetic field on the waves and the subsurface structure.

A laboratory plasma experiment has been constructed to simulate the eruption of arched magnetic flux ropes (AMFRs e.g., coronal loops, solar prominences) in an ambient magnetized plasma. The laboratory AMFR is produced using an annular hot LaB6 cathode and an annular anode in a vacuum chamber which has additional electrodes to produce the ambient magnetized plasma. Two laser beams strike movable carbon targets placed behind the annular electrodes to generate controlled plasma flows from the AMFR footpoints that drives the AMFR eruption. The experiment operates with a 0.5 Hz repetition rate and is highly reproducible. Thus, time evolution of the AMFR is recorded in three-dimensions with high spatio-temporal resolutions using movable diagnostic probes. Experimental results demonstrate outward expansion of the AMFR, release of its plasma to the background, and excitation of fast magnetosonic waves during the eruption.

The flows in and around sunspots are rich in detail. Starting with the Evershed flow along low-lying flow channels, which are cospatial with the horizontal penumbral magnetic fields, Evershed clouds may continue this motion at the periphery of the sunspot as moving magnetic features in the sunspot moat. Besides these well-ordered flows, peculiar motions are found in complex sunspots, where they contribute to the build-up or relaxation of magnetic shear. In principle, the three-dimensional structure of these velocity fields can be captured. The line-of-sight component of the velocity vector is accessible with spectroscopic measurements, whereas local correlation or feature tracking techniques provide the means to assess horizontal proper motions. The next generation of ground-based solar telescopes will provide spectropolarimetric data resolving solar fine structure with sizes below 50 km. Thus, these new telescopes with advanced post-focus instruments act as a ‘zoom lens’ to study the intricate surface flows associated with sunspots. Accompanied by ‘wide-angle’ observations from space, we have now the opportunity to describe sunspots as a system. This review reports recent findings related to flows in and around sunpots and highlights the role of advanced instrumentation in the discovery process.

During the eclipse of a planet, spots and other features on the surface of the host star may be occulted. This will cause small variations in the light curve of the star. Detailed studies of these variations during planetary transits provide a wealth of information about the starspots properties such as size, position, temperature (i.e. intensity), and magnetic field. If observation of multiple transits is available, the spots lifetime can be estimated. Moreover it may also be possible to determine the stellar rotation and whether differential rotation is present. Here, the study is performed using a method that simulates the passage of a planet (dark disk) in front of a star with multiple spots of different sizes, intensities, and positions on its surface. The data variations in the light curve of the star are fit using this method, yielding the starspots properties. Results are presented for solar-like stars, such as the active star CoRoT-2a.

The evolution of prolonged and unusually long solar cycles such as 23rd, 20th, and especially 4th is considered. Why the length of the 4th cycle was exceptionally large or really composed of two short cycles? Are the prolonged solar minima can be considered as precursor of low activity of the next cycles? Resolving these puzzles seems to be very important for dynamo theories trying to explain the solar long-term variations. We propose a possible model of the butterfly diagram during unusually long and prolonged cycles, based on (i) the Gnevyshev idea of sunspot distribution over the latitudes, and (ii) the phase differences of the northern and southern hemispheric activities.

Quasi-Separatrix Layers (QSLs) are 3D geometrical objects that define narrow volumes across which magnetic field lines have strong, but finite, gradients of connectivity from one footpoint to another. QSLs extend the concept of separatrices, that are topological objects across which the connectivity is discontinuous. Based on analytical arguments, and on magnetic field extrapolations of the Sun's coronal force-free field above observed active regions, it has long since been conjectured that QSLs are favorable locations for current sheet (CS) formation, as well as for magnetic reconnection, and therefore are good predictors for the locations of magnetic energy release in flares and coronal heating. It is only up to recently that numerical MHD simulations and solar observations, as well as a laboratory experiment, have started to address the validity of these conjectures. When put all together, they suggest that QSL reconnection is involved in the displacement of EUV and SXR brightenings along chromospheric flare ribbons, that it is related with the heating of EUV coronal loops, and that the dissipation of QSL related CS may be the cause of coronal heating in initially homogeneous, braided and turbulent flux tubes, as well as in coronal arcades rooted in the slowly moving and numerous small-scale photospheric flux concentrations, both in active region faculae and in the quiet Sun. The apparent ubiquity of QSL-related CS in the Sun's corona, which will need to be quantified with new generation solar instruments, also suggests that QSLs play an important role in stellar's atmospheres, when their surface radial magnetic fields display complex patterns.

Collision of the magnetic flux tubes in the Quiet Sun was proposed as one of the possible sources for the heating of the solar atmosphere (Furusawa and Sakai, 2000). The solar photosphere was observed using the New Solar Telescope ad Big Bear Solar Observatory. In TiO spectral line at 705.68 nm we approached resolution of 0.1″. The horizontal plasma wave was observed spreading from the larger bright point. Shorty after this wave an increase in the oscillatory power appeared at the same location as the observed bright point. This behavior matches some of the results from the simulation of the collision of the two flux tubes with a weak current.

While the rising flux tube paradigm is an elegant theory, its basic assumptions, thin flux tubes at the bottom of the convection zone with field strengths two orders of magnitude above equipartition, remain numerically unverified at best. As such, in recent years the idea of a formation of sunspots near the top of the convection zone has generated some interest. The presence of turbulence can strongly enhance diffusive transport mechanisms, leading to an effective transport coefficient formalism in the mean-field formulation. The question is what happens to these coefficients when the turbulence becomes anisotropic due to a strong large-scale mean magnetic field. It has been noted in the past that this anisotropy can also lead to highly non-diffusive behavior. In the present work we investigate the formation of large-scale magnetic structures as a result of a negative contribution of turbulence to the large-scale effective magnetic pressure in the presence of stratification. In direct numerical simulations of forced turbulence in a stratified box, we verify the existence of this effect. This phenomenon can cause formation of large-scale magnetic structures even from initially uniform large-scale magnetic field.

The best way to test the stellar magnetic field mapping codes is to apply them, with some changes, to the Sun, where high-precision disk-integrated and disk-resolved observations are available for a long time. Data sets of the full-disk magnetograms and the solar mean magnetic fields (SMMF) measurements are provided, for example, by the J.M.Wilcox Solar observatory (WSO) and by the Sayan Solar observatory (SSO). In the second case the measurements in the Stokes-meter mode simultaneously in many spectral lines are available. This study is devoted to analysis of the SSO quasi-simultaneous full-disk magnetograms and SMMF measurements. Changes of the SMMF signal with rotation of the surface large-scale magnetic fields are demonstrated. Besides, by deleting of selected pixels with active regions (AR) from the maps their contribution to the integrated SMMF signal is evaluated. It is shown that in some cases the role of AR can be rather significant.

The primary task of the Debrecen Observatory is the most detailed, reliable and precise documentation of the solar photospheric activity. This long-term effort started with the continuation of the Greenwich photoheliograph program, this is the Debrecen Photoheliographic Data (DPD) sunspot catalogue based on ground-based observations. The profile of the work has later been extended to space-borne observations (SOHO/MDI and SDO), to magnetic fields and faculae as well as to higher temporal resolution (one hour) and nearly real-time data supply. The database also includes historical observations. The web-presentation developed for the material is easy to search and browse. We describe the main characteristics of these catalogs, and their advantages. We summarize the recent advances in the procedure of their compilation, and the available sets of the data and images.

We present a 30 year compilation of V-band differential photometry for the Pleiades K dwarf HII 1883. HII 1883 has an average rotational period 〈Prot〉 of ~0.235d and displays rotational modulation due to non-uniform surface brightness as large as 0.2 magnitudes in V. Preliminary work yields a cycle period of ~9yrs and rotational shear δProt/〈Prot〉 considerably less than solar. With such a long baseline of data available we can explore many aspects of the star's photometric variability. We present studies of the variation of the rotational modulation amplitude, 〈V〉, and Prot over the cycle.

A time-latitude diagram where spotgroups are given proportional relevance to their area is presented. The diagram reveals that the spotted area distribution is higly dishomogeneous, most of it being concentrated in few, small portions (“knots”) of the Butterfly Diagram; because of this structure, the BD may be properly described as a cluster of knots. The description, assuming that spots scatter around the “spot mean latitude” steadily drifting equatorward, is challenged. Indeed, spots cluster around at as many latitudes as knots; a knot may appear at either lower or higher latitudes than previous ones, in a seemingly random way; accordingly, the spot mean latitude abruptly drifts equatorward or even poleward at any knot activation, in spite of any smoothing procedure. Preliminary analyses suggest that the activity splits, in any hemisphere, into two or more distinct “activity waves”, drifting equatorward at a rate higher than the spot zone as a whole.

In a force-free magnetic field, there is no interaction of field and the plasma in the surrounding atmosphere i.e., electric currents are aligned with the magnetic field, giving rise to zero Lorentz force. The computation of many magnetic parameters like magnetic energy, gradient of twist of sunspot magnetic fields (computed from the force-free parameter α), including any kind of extrapolations heavily hinge on the force-free approximation of the photospheric magnetic fields. The force-free magnetic behaviour of the photospheric sunspot fields has been examined by Metcalf et al. (1995) and Moon et al. (2002) ending with inconsistent results. Metcalf et al. (1995) concluded that the photospheric magnetic fields are far from the force-free nature whereas Moon et al. (2002) found the that the photospheric magnetic fields are not so far from the force-free nature as conventionally regarded. The accurate photospheric vector field measurements with high resolution are needed to examine the force-free nature of sunspots. We use high resolution vector magnetograms obtained from the Solar Optical Telescope/Spectro-Polarimeter (SOT/SP) aboard Hinode to inspect the force-free behaviour of the photospheric sunspot magnetic fields. Both the necessary and sufficient conditions for force-freeness are examined by checking global as well as as local nature of sunspot magnetic fields. We find that the sunspot magnetic fields are very close to the force-free approximation, although they are not completely force-free on the photosphere.

This review will discuss both observational and theoretical aspects of the Sun's global magnetic field. First recent observations will be described, along with the main physical processes leading to the time evolution and structure of the global field. Following this, recent theoretical models of both the global surface and coronal magnetic field will be presented. The application of these models to the structure of the corona, formation of solar filaments, the onset of CMEs and finally the origin and variation of the Sun's open flux will be discussed.

An urgent problem in modern solar physics, which is not completely solved up to now, is to obtain realistic magnetic field strength values from parameters measured magnetographs or Stokes-meter instruments. One of the important tools on this way is a comparison of observations made in different spectral lines with the same or with the different telescopes. This issue is an actual task in the analysis of the new data sets provided by the space missions SOHO and Hinode, which measurements are available for several years already, and SDO, which data appeared recently. The main aim of this study is a cross-comparison of magnetic field observations made in different spectral lines used on the above mentioned space observatories: Ni i λ676.77 nm (SOHO/MDI), Fe i λ630.152 nm and Fe i λ630.25 nm (Hinode/SP), and Fe i λ617.33 nm (SDO/HMI). Full-disk high-precision Stokes-meter measurements with the STOP telescope at the Sayan observatory in these lines are used basically, as well as some observations in other spectral lines having a great diagnostic impact, such as Fe i λ525.02 nm, Fe i λ523.29 nm and Fe i λ532.42 nm. The difference between one-instrument (STOP) simultaneous or quasi-simultaneous observations in different spectral lines do not exceed the factor of 2-3 depending on the combination of spectral lines and the position on the solar disk. This is significantly less than in some other studies devoted to cross-comparison of different data sets. Importance and consequences of the obtained results are discussed.