File:Magnetoconvection.webm

English: The solar convection appears as a cell-like pattern known as granulation, where hot rising plasma creates bright columns called granules that cools off sinking into the dark narrow intergranular lanes. Magnetic fields present at the solar surface are carried by the motion of the plasma and accumulate in these dark lanes.

The animation shows a vertical section (~1000 km wide and ~400 km deep) below the visible solar surface, encompassing parts of two granules and the intergranular space in between them. The solar surface is represented by the black curve that moves up and down in response to the rising and sinking plasma. The temperature on this plane is shown in a white (cool) to blue (hot) colorscale and the arrows denote the velocity field. The magnetic field lines that cross the section plane are shown in pink color. In the beginning of the animation, the velocity field beneath the surface shows a vortical flow structure near the edge of the granule; a common characteristic of granules. Nearby, a horizontal magnetic flux bundle is visible above the surface. The vortex flow grabs this magnetic field bundle from the intergranular lane, burying it beneath the visible surface, only to later raise it up again on top of the granule and bring it back to the intergranular lane. During the course of its journey, the magnetic fields get twisted and stretched. Such shallow recirculation of surface magnetic fields is thought to play an important role in the small-scale dynamo acting in the surface layers of the Sun.

The 3D radiation-magnetohydrodynamic (R-MHD) computer simulation was carried out using the CO5BOLD code (Freytag et al 2012) by Calvo (2018). More details of this simulation can be found in Fischer et al (2020). The visualization was created using ParaView.