The upper main sequence magnetic chemically peculiar (Ap) stars exhibit a non-uniform distribution of chemical elements across their surfaces and with height in their atmospheres. These inhomogeneities, responsible for the conspicuous photometric and spectroscopic variation of Ap stars, are believed to be produced by atomic diffusion operating in the stellar atmospheres stabilized by multi-kG magnetic fields. Here I present an overview of the current state-of-the-art in understanding Ap-star spots and their relation to magnetic fields. In particular, I highlight recent 3-D chemical spot structure studies and summarize magnetic field mapping results based on the inversion of the full Stokes vector spectropolarimetric observations. I also discuss a puzzling new type of spotted stars, HgMn stars, in which the formation and evolution of heavy element spots is driven by a poorly understood mechanism, apparently unrelated to magnetic fields.

Magnetic buoyancy is believed to drive the transport of magnetic flux tubes from the convection zone to the surface of the Sun. The magnetic fields form twisted loop-like structures in the solar atmosphere. In this paper we use helical forcing to produce a large-scale dynamo-generated magnetic field, which rises even without magnetic buoyancy. A two layer system is used as computational domain where the upper part represents the solar atmosphere. Here, the evolution of the magnetic field is solved with the stress–and–relax method. Below this region a magnetic field is produced by a helical forcing function in the momentum equation, which leads to dynamo action. We find twisted magnetic fields emerging frequently to the outer layer, forming arch-like structures. In addition, recurrent plasmoid ejections can be found by looking at space–time diagrams of the magnetic field. Recent simulations in spherical coordinates show similar results.

M dwarfs produce explosive flare emission in the near-UV and optical continuum, and the mechanism responsible for this phenomenon is not well-understood. We present a near-UV/optical flare spectrum from the rise phase of a secondary flare, which occurred during the decay of a much larger flare. The newly formed flare emission resembles the spectrum of an early-type star, with the Balmer lines and continuum in absorption. We model this observation phenomenologically as a temperature bump (hot spot) near the photosphere of the M dwarf. The amount of heating implied by our model (ΔTphot ~ 16,000 K) is far more than predicted by chromospheric backwarming in current 1D RHD flare models (ΔTphot ~ 1200 K).

The early solar observations of Covington (1947) established a good relation between 10.7 cm solar flux and the presence of sunspots on solar disk. The first spatially resolved observation with a two-element interferometer at arc min resolution by Kundu (1959) found that the radio source at 3 cm has a core-halo structure; the core is highly polarized and corresponds to the umbra of a sunspot with magnetic fields of several hundred gauss, and the halo corresponds to the diffuse penumbra or plage region. The coronal temperature of the core was interpreted as due to gyroresonance opacity produced by acceleration of electrons gyrating in a magnetic field. Since the opacity is produced at resonant layers where the frequency matches harmonics of the gyrofrequency, the radio observation could be utilized to measure the coronal magnetic field. Since this simple interferometric observation, the next step for solar astronomers was to use arc second resolution offered by large arrays at cm wavelengths such as Westerbrock Synthesis Radio Telescope and the Very Large Array, which were primarily built for cosmic radio research. Currently, the Owens Valley Solar Array operating in the range 1-18 GHz and the Nobeyama Radio Heliograph at 17 and 34 GHz are the only solar dedicated radio telescopes. Using these telescopes at multiple wavelengths it is now possible to explore three dimensional structure of sunspot associated radio sources and therefore of coronal magnetic fields. We shall present these measurements at wavelengths ranging from 1.7 cm to 90 cm and associated theoretical developments.

Observations of sun-like stars rotating faster than our current sun tend to exhibit increased magnetic activity as well as magnetic cycles spanning multiple years. Using global simulations in spherical shells to study the coupling of large-scale convection, rotation, and magnetism in a younger sun, we have probed effects of rotation on stellar dynamos and the nature of magnetic cycles. Major 3-D MHD simulations carried out at three times the current solar rotation rate reveal hydromagnetic dynamo action that yields wreaths of strong toroidal magnetic field at low latitudes, often with opposite polarity in the two hemispheres. Our recent simulations have explored behavior in systems with considerably lower diffusivities, achieved with sub-grid scale models including a dynamic Smagorinsky treatment of unresolved turbulence. The lower diffusion promotes the generation of magnetic wreaths that undergo prominent temporal variations in field strength, exhibiting global magnetic cycles that involve polarity reversals. In our least diffusive simulation, we find that magnetic buoyancy coupled with advection by convective giant cells can lead to the rise of coherent loops of magnetic field toward the top of the simulated domain.

Temperature contrasts and magnetic field strengths of sunspot umbrae broadly follow the thermal-magnetic relationship obtained from magnetohydrostatic equilibrium. Using a compilation of recent observations, especially in molecular bands, of temperature contrasts of starspots in cool stars, and a grid of Kurucz stellar model atmospheres constructed to cover layers of sub-surface convection zone, we examine how the above relationship scales with effective temperature (Teff), surface gravity g and the associated changes in opacity of stellar photospheric gas. We calculate expected field strengths in starpots and find that a given relative reduction in temperatures (or the same darkness contrasts) yield increasing field strengths against decreasing Teff due to a combination of pressure and opacity variations against Teff.

Photospheric stellar activity (i.e. dark spots or bright plages) might be an important source of noise and confusion in the radial-velocity (RV) measurements. Radial-velocimetry planet search surveys as well as follow-up of photometric transit surveys require a deeper understanding and characterization of the effects of stellar activities to disentangle it from planetary signals.

We simulate dark spots on a rotating stellar photosphere. The variations of the RV are characterized and analyzed according to the stellar inclination, the latitude and the number of spots. The Lomb-Scargle periodograms of the RV variations induced by activity present power at the rotational period Prot of the star and its two-first harmonics Prot/2 and Prot/3. Three adjusted sinusoids fixed at the fundamental period and its two-first harmonics allow to remove about 90% of the RV jitter amplitude. We apply and validate our approach on four known active planet-host stars: HD 189733, GJ 674, CoRoT-7 and ι Hor. We succeed in fitting simultaneously activity and planetary signals on GJ674 and CoRoT-7. We excluded short-period low-mass exoplanets around ι Hor. Our approach is efficient to disentangle reflex-motion due to a planetary companion and stellar-activity induced-RV variations provided that 1) the planetary orbital period is not close to that of the stellar rotation or one of its two-first harmonics, 2) the rotational period of the star is accurately known, 3) the data cover more than one stellar rotational period.

The original sunspot observations by Samuel Heinrich Schwabe of 1825–1867 were digitized and a first subset of spots was measured. In this initial project, we determined more than 14 000 sunspot positions and areas comprising about 11% of the total amount of spots available from that period. The resulting butterfly diagram has a typical appearance, but with evident north-south asymmetries.

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.

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.

We have observed formation of penumbrae on a pore in the active region NOAA10838 using Dunn Solar Telescope at NSO, Sunpot, USA. Simultaneous observations using different instruments (DLSP, UBF, Gband and CaK) provide us with vector magnetic field at photosphere, intensity images and Doppler velocity at different heights from photosphere to chromosphere. Results from our analysis of this particular data-set suggests that penumbrae are formed as a result of relaxation of magnetic field due to a flare happening at the same time. Images in Hα show the flare (C 2.9 as per GOES) and vector magnetic fields show a re-orientation and reduction in the global α value (a measure of twist). We feel such relaxation of loop structures due to reconnections or flare could be one of the way by which field lines fall back to the photosphere to form penumbrae.

In our earlier study of a revisit of the classic Wilson Effect, it was found that a large proportion of sunspots do not display the geometric effect which is ascribed to a depression of the umbra. It was shown that the presence or absence of the effect, observed close to the limb, depends upon the ambient magnetic configuration of the sunspot. In this follow up study, we look for the impact of changes in ambient magnetic configuration on the measurable properties of sunspots during their disk passage, using observations obtained at the Kodaikanal observatory during 1978-80. Digitized photoheliogram data were used to examine and measure areas of spots and their umbrae for 101 cases. Magnetic field measures published by the Academy of sciences, Leningrad were used to evaluate the ambient magnetic configuration. The results indicate that the extent of magnetic bipolarity is associated with changes in the proportion of the area of the penumbra to that of the umbra. In regular spots, the relative area of penumbra reduces with reduction in the strength of ambient opposite polarity spots and pores. However, in the presence of pore sized blob(s) in penumbra, and with associated emerging fluxes, the penumbra is significantly enlarged. But in the presence of a light bridge or a split umbra, the relative area of penumbra is considerably reduced.

We use 3D radiative MHD simulations of the upper turbulent convection layer for investigation of physical mechanisms of formation of magnetic structures on the Sun. The simulations include all essential physical processes, and are based of the LES (Large-Eddy Simulations) approach for describing the sub-grid scale turbulence. The simulation domain covers the top layer of the convection zone and the lower atmosphere. The results reveal a process of spontaneous formation of stable magnetic structures from an initially weak vertical magnetic field, uniformly distributed in the simulation domain. The process starts concentration of magnetic patches at the boundaries of granular cells, which are subsequently merged together into a stable large-scale structure by converging downdrafts below the surface. The resulting structure represents a compact concentration of strong magnetic field, reaching 6 kG in the interior. It has a cluster-like internal structurization, and is maintained by strong downdrafts extending into the deep layers.

Sunspot regions often form complexes of activity that may live for several solar rotations, and represent a major component of the Sun's magnetic activity. It had been suggested that the close appearance of active regions in space and time might be related to common subsurface roots, or “nests” of activity. EUV images show that the active regions are magnetically connected in the corona, but subsurface connections have not been established. We investigate the subsurface structure and dynamics of a large complex of activity, NOAA 10987-10989, observed during the SOHO/MDI Dynamics run in March-April 2008, which was a part of the Whole Heliospheric Interval (WHI) campaign. The active regions in this complex appeared in a narrow latitudinal range, probably representing a subsurface toroidal flux tube. We use the MDI full-disk Dopplergrams to measure perturbations of travel times of acoustic waves traveling to various depths by using time-distance helioseismology, and obtain sound-speed and flow maps by inversion of the travel times. The subsurface flow maps show an interesting dynamics of decaying active regions with persistent shearing flows, which may be important for driving the flaring and CME activity, observed during the WHI campaign. Our analyses, including the seismic sound-speed inversion results and the distribution of deep-focus travel-time anomalies, gave indications of diverging roots of the magnetic structures, as could be expected from Ω-loop structures. However, no clear connection in the depth range of 0-48 Mm among the three active regions in this complex of activity was detected.

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.

A nonlinear force-free magnetic field extrapolation of vector magnetogram data obtained by THEMIS/MTR on 2005 May 27 suggests the simultaneous existence of different magnetic configurations within one active region filament: one part of the filament is supported by field line dips within a flux rope, while the other part is located in dips within an arcade structure. Although the axial field chirality (dextral) and the magnetic helicity (negative) are the same along the whole filament, the chiralities of the filament barbs at different sections are opposite, i.e., right-bearing in the flux rope part and left-bearing in the arcade part. This argues against past suggestions that different barb chiralities imply different signs of helicity of the underlying magnetic field. This new finding about the chirality of filaments will be useful to associate eruptive filaments and magnetic cloud using the helicity parameter in the Space Weather Science.

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.

The context is that of the so-called “fundamental ambiguity” (also azimuth ambiguity, or 180° ambiguity) in magnetic field vector measurements: two field vectors symmetrical with respect to the line-of-sight have the same polarimetric signature, so that they cannot be discriminated. We propose a method to solve this ambiguity by applying the “simulated annealing” algorithm to the minimization of the field divergence, added to the longitudinal current absolute value, the line-of-sight derivative of the magnetic field being inferred by the interpretation of the Zeeman effect observed by spectropolarimetry in two lines formed at different depths. We find that the line pair Fe I λ 6301.5 and Fe I λ 6302.5 is appropriate for this purpose. We treat the example case of the δ-spot of NOAA 10808 observed on 13 September 2005 between 14:25 and 15:25 UT with the THEMIS telescope. Besides the magnetic field resolved map, the electric current density vector map is also obtained. A strong horizontal current density flow is found surrounding each spot inside its penumbra, associated to a non-zero Lorentz force centripetal with respect to the spot center (i.e., oriented towards the spot center). The current wrapping direction is found to depend on the spot polarity: clockwise for the positive polarity, counterclockwise for the negative one. This analysis is made possible thanks to the UNNOFIT2 Milne-Eddington inversion code, where the usual theory is generalized to the case of a line (Fe I λ 6301.5) that is not a normal Zeeman triplet line (like Fe I λ 6302.5).

Since photospheric bright points (BPs) were first observed, there has been a question as to how are they structured. Are they just single flux tubes or a bundle of the flux-tubes? Surface photometry of the quiet Sun (QS) has achieved resolution close to 0.1″ with the New Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory. This resolution allowed us to detect a richer spectrum of BPs in the QS. The smallest BPs we observed with TiO 705.68 nm were 0.13″, and we were able to resolve individual components in some of the BPs clusters and ribbons observed in the QS, showing that they are composed of the individual BPs. Average size of observed BPs was 0.22″.

Using maximum brightness of coronal bright point's (CBP) as a criterion, we separate them on two categories: dim CBPs, associated with areas of a quiet Sun, and bright CBPs, associated with an active Sun. This study reports on characteristics of two types of CBPs and their evolution.