HR: 08:30h
AN: SP31A-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Do Dark Faculae Exist?
AU: * Xu, Y
EM: yx2@njit.edu
AF: Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research, Physics Department, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Blvd, Newark, NJ 07102 United States
AU: Cao, W
EM: wcao@bbso.njit.edu
AF: Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research, Physics Department, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Blvd, Newark, NJ 07102 United States
AU: Cao, W
EM: wcao@bbso.njit.edu
AF: Big Bear Solar Observatory, 40386 North Shore Lane, Big Bear City, CA 92314 United States
AU: Ma, J
EM: jxm1901@njit.edu
AF: Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research, Physics Department, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Blvd, Newark, NJ 07102 United States
AU: Hartkon, K
EM: klaush@bbso.njit.edu
AF: Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research, Physics Department, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Blvd, Newark, NJ 07102 United States
AU: Jing, J
EM: jj4@njit.edu
AF: Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research, Physics Department, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Blvd, Newark, NJ 07102 United States
AU: Denker, C
EM: carsten.j.denker@njit.edu
AF: Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research, Physics Department, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Blvd, Newark, NJ 07102 United States
AU: Denker, C
EM: carsten.j.denker@njit.edu
AF: Big Bear Solar Observatory, 40386 North Shore Lane, Big Bear City, CA 92314 United States
AU: Wang, H
EM: haimin@flare.njit.edu
AF: Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research, Physics Department, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Blvd, Newark, NJ 07102 United States
AU: Wang, H
EM: haimin@flare.njit.edu
AF: Big Bear Solar Observatory, 40386 North Shore Lane, Big Bear City, CA 92314 United States
AB: High-resolution images in visible light and the near infrared (NIR) continuum around 1560~nm were obtained in solar active region NOAA~10707 with the Dunn Solar Telescope (DST) at the National Solar Observatory/Sacramento Peak (NSO/SP) on 2004 December~2 and 7. A spatial resolution close to the diffraction limit of the 76~cm DST was achieved with high-order adaptive optics system. The observation were made with a near infrared tunable Lyot filter system newly developed by Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO). The filter has a bandpass of 2.5~Å. This allows us to observe the pure NIR continuum that represents the opacity minimum. Our data show that the contrast of faculae has the same sign in the visible and the NIR continua. There is no evidence for the existence of so-called "dark faculae", faculae that have negative contrasts in the NIR and positive contrasts in visible light. We conclude that the previously observed "dark faculae" are unresolved pores.
This work is supported by NSF under grants ATM-0313591, ATM-0236945, ATM-0233931 and AST-0307676, by NASA under grants NAG5-10910, NAG5-10212 and NAG5-12733, and by Air Force under grant F49620-02-1-0265 and by NSFC-10103004.
DE: 7524 Magnetic fields
DE: 7529 Photosphere
DE: 7538 Solar irradiance
SC: Solar Physics Division - AAS [SP]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly