THE DEEP LAYERS OF SOLAR MAGNETIC ELEMENTS

We compare self-consistent theoretical models of solar magnetic flux s heets with spectropolarimetric observations of a solar plage and a net work region. Our observational diagnostics mainly provide information on temperature and magnetic field of the deep photospheric layers. The y are used to constrain the two free parameters of the models, viz. wi dth and initial evacuation of the flux sheets. We find that the width of flux sheets in the network is approximately 200 km, while it is 300 -350 km in an active plage. The flux sheets turn out to be less evacua ted than previously thought, so they have continuum intensities close to unity. Since these are average values, however, our results do not exclude the presence of either smaller and brighter or larger and dark er magnetic structures.