The project is a collaboration between the Leibniz-Institut für Sonnenphysik (KIS, Freiburg), and the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Science (ASU, Ondrejov), with N. Bello González and J. Jurčák as principal investigators of the respective collaborating institutions.

The project, funded for three years, focuses on the investigation of the interplay between plasmas and magnetic fields operating in active regions of the Sun. For that purpose, both (1) high-resolution spectro-polarimetric observations from GREGOR (El Teide Observatory), DKIST (NSO, Maui) and HMI/SDO, and (2) magneto-hydrodynamic MURaM simulations of sunspots are analysed with diverse techniques (inversions, statistical analysis, machine learning,…).

This international collaboration consolidates a KIS-ASU team formed by students, post-docs and staff scientists in 2014. Since then, our team has been carrying out investigations on fundamental aspects of the magneto-convective modes operating in sunspots like, e.g., magnetic nature of the umbral boundary in stable sunspots and how the vertical magnetic field ensures stability of the umbral mode against overturning convection.

The KIS-ASU team also collaborates with other international scientists like Matthias Rempel (HAO, Boulder, Co, USA) and Irina Thaler (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel).

Contact at KIS: nbello@~@leibniz-kis.de
Contact at ASU: jurcak@~@asu.cas.cz