Activity dependence of solar supergranular fractal dimension

Abstract

We study the complexity of supergranular cells using the intensity patterns obtained at the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory during the solar maximum. Our data consist of visually identified supergranular cells, from which a fractal dimension D for supergranulation is obtained according to the relation P∝AD/2 , where A is the area and P the perimeter of the supergranular cells. We find a fractal dimension of about 1.12 for active region cells and about 1.25 for quiet region cells, a difference that could be attributed to the inhibiting effect of the magnetic field.