A photometric study of faculae and sunspots between 1.2 and 1.6 μm

We investigate further the interpretation of dark magnetic faculae observed in previous imaging of the solar photosphere at 1.63 m. We show that their contrast at 1.63 m increases with magnetic flux beyond a threshold value of 2 × 10¹⁸ Mx and blends smoothly with the contrast vs flux relation measured at this wavelength for larger structures of sunspot size. Not all facular structures that are bright in Ca K are dark at 1.63 m, apparently because their magnetic flux is not large enough. After correction for blurring, the contrast of the dark faculae observed near the disc center at 1.63 m is approximately 4%. But our observations at 1.23 m, which probe slightly higher photospheric levels, do not show these dark faculae. These results indicate that magnetic flux tubes of diameter as small as 500 km significantly inhibit convective heat flow to the photosphere, much as do sunspot flux tubes of much larger diameter. They also suggest that, in even smaller flux tubes, the inhibition becomes rapidly less significant. Finally, we show that the sunspot-size dependence of umbral infrared contrast versus wavelength that we observe can probably be explained in terms of instrumental blurring. Observations with lower scattered light will be required to determine whether a real decrease of contrast with diameter also plays a role.