Observations of the Sun at 2.2 and 3.75 μm have been made at the Pic-du-Midi and Crimean observatories. High resolution (~ 1″) records of the sunspot and facular contrasts at various heliocentric distances as well as those at the extreme solar limb are presented. We find substantial variations in the sunspot-core relative intensity caused by magnetic activity of the spot. The extreme-limb contrasts of faculae at 3.75 μm are strong thus support flux-tube models which result in an enhancement of the extreme-limb facular brightness.

Infrared array detectors are a new and promising tool for investigating the properties of magnetic field concentrations in the solar photosphere. Array measurements provide large statistical samples of polarized line profiles and display the spatial organization of the magnetic field. The wavelength region near 1.6 μm has important advantages for magnetometry: spectral lines with magnetic sensitivites ranging from low to very high; low continuum opacity; high continuum flux; and the possibility of sub-arcsecond angular resolution with existing telescopes. Initial results have extended earlier work on the distribution of field strength and flux in plages and revealed new properties specifically connected with spatial structure. The quality and flexibility of near infrared magnetographs can be expected to improve rapidly.

The High Resolution Telescope and Spectrograph (HRTS) instrument has obtained broadband spectroheliograph images at 1600 Å of the solar temperature minimum region. I discuss HRTS observations of quiet areas and their relation with magnetic fields, five minute oscillations, and heating. The brightness temperature of solar fine structure elements composing the supergranular network is found to be linearly proportional to the local absolute value of magnetic field strength. There is evidence for a 250-s period oscillation occurring in 10-arcsec scale patches, which however is energetically unimportant to the local heating budget. A general nonmagnetic background heating and five minute oscillations occur globally, while the network bright points occur in magnetic regions, heated perhaps from partial dissipation of Alfvén waves (whose energy flux is linearly proportional to B) in individual elemental 1500-G (at the photosphere) flux tubes which expand to form the temperature minimum fine structure bright points.

The structure of solar surface magnetic fields, the way they erupt from the the convection zone below, and processes like flux expulsion and fragmentation instabilities support the view that magnetic flux in a stellar convection zone is in an intermittent, fragmented state which can be described as an ensemble of magnetic flux tubes. Depending on size and field strength, the dynamics of magnetic flux tubes can strongly differ from the behavior of a passive, diffuse field which is often assumed in conventional mean-field dynamo theory. Observed properties of active regions like emergence in low latitudes, Hale's polarity rules, tilt angles, and the process of sunspot formation from smaller fragments, together with theoretical considerations of the dynamics of buoyant flux tubes indicate that the magnetic structures which erupt in an emerging active region are not passive to convection and originate in a source region (presumably an overshoot layer below the convection zone proper) with a field strength of at least 105 G, far beyond the equipartition field strength with respect to convective flows. We discuss the consequences of such a situation for dynamo theory of the solar cycle and consider the possibility of dynamo models on the basis of flux tubes. A simple, illustrative example of a flux tube dynamo is presented.