The evolution of dark canopies around active regions

Abstract

As observed in spectral lines originating from the chromosphere, transition region, and low corona, active regions are surrounded by an extensive "circumfacular" area which is darker than the quiet Sun. We examine the properties of these dark moat- or canopy-like areas using Fe IX 17.1 nm images and line-of-sight magnetograms from the Solar Dynamics Observatory. The 17.1 nm canopies consist of fibrils (horizontal fields containing extreme-ultraviolet-absorbing chromospheric material) clumped into featherlike structures. The dark fibrils initially form a quasiradial or vortical pattern as the low-lying field lines fanning out from the emerging active region connect to surrounding network and intranetwork elements of opposite polarity. The area occupied by the 17.1 nm fibrils expands as supergranular convection causes the active-region flux to spread into the background medium; the outer boundary of the dark canopy stabilizes where the diffusing flux encounters a unipolar region of opposite sign. The dark fibrils tend to accumulate in regions of weak longitudinal field and to become rooted in mixed-polarity flux. To explain the latter observation, we note that the low-lying fibrils are more likely to interact with small loops associated with weak, opposite-polarity flux elements in close proximity, than with high loops anchored inside strong unipolar network flux. As a result, the 17.1 nm fibrils gradually become concentrated around the large-scale polarity inversion lines (PILs), where most of the mixed-polarity flux is located. Systematic flux cancellation, assisted by rotational shearing, removes the field component transverse to the PIL and causes the fibrils to coalesce into long PIL-aligned filaments. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..