Solar Faculae Explained with Numerical MHD Simulations

Christoph Keller, SIU, Universiteit Utrecht

The 1-m Swedish Solar Telescope (SST) shows the structure of the solar
atmosphere in unprecedented detail, which led to many discoveries.  Most
of these recent discoveries are related to magnetic fields.  To
understand the origin of some of these structures, I have analyzed
numerical MHD simulations of the solar photosphere. I will concentrate
on solar faculae, which are the main contributor to solar irradiance
variations, which influence the climate on Earth.  Faculae have been
know since telescopes have been pointed at the Sun, but their origin has
never been clearly revealed.  The numerical simulations reproduce the
high-resolution images of faculae from the SST in detail.  Thanks to the
combination of high-reolsution images from the SST with state-of-the-art
numerical MHD simulations, we now understand the origin of faculae.