Infrared array measurements of sunspot magnetic fields

We have used a 128 × 128 format HgCdTl infrared array with the Sacramento Peak Observatory Vacuum Telescope (VTT) and Echelle spectrograph to obtain two-dimensional observations of the true magnetic field strength in a sunspot. The system we describe retains all of the spectral information contained in the unpolarized IR Fraunhofer line profile with time resolution of about a minute (depending on the scan area and spatial resolution). Unlike previous optical observations (cf. Adam, 1990), infrared observations readily allow direct field strength measurements out to the outer edge of the penumbra. Our data suggest that the magnetic flux density in the outer penumbra is not well described by an extrapolation of the quadratic polynomial, in normalized central distance, that describes the umbral field. We measure a relatively high field strength of 800 G at the penumbra-quiet-Sun boundary, which is consistent with the ‘return-flux’ model of Osherovich and Garcia (1989).