Moving dipolar features in an emerging flux region

On 25 January, 2000, we observed active region NOAA 8844 with the Flare Genesis Experiment (FGE), a balloon-borne observatory with an 80-cm solar telescope. FGE was equipped with a vector polarimeter and a tunable Fabry-Perot narrow-band filter. It recorded time series of filtergrams, vector magnetograms and Dopplergrams; at the Ca I 6122.2 Angstrom line, and Halpha filtergrams with a cadence between 2.5 and 7.5 min. At the time of the observations, NOAA 8844 was located at approximately 5degrees N 30degrees W. The region was growing rapidly; new magnetic flux was constantly emerging in three supergranules near its center. We report on the structure and behavior of peculiar moving dipolar features (MDFs) in the emerging flux, and we describe in derail how the FGE data were analyzed. In longitudinal magnetograms, the MDFs; appeared to be small dipoles flowing into Sunspots and supergranule boundaries. Previously, dipolar moving. magnetic features (MMFS) have only been observed flowing out from sunspots, The FGE vector magnetograms show that die MDFs occurred in a region with nearly horizontal fields, the MDFs being distinguished as undulations in these fields. We identify the MDFs as stitches where the emerging flux ropes were still tied to the photosphere by trapped mass. We present a U-loop model that accounts for their unusual structure and behavior, a well as showing how emerging flux sheds entrained mass.