AXIAL TILT ANGLES OF ACTIVE REGIONS AND THEIR POLARITY SEPARATIONS

Sunspot group and magnetic (plage) data are examined to search for a relationship between the tilt angles of active regions and the separations of their leading and following portions. A relationship is found in the sense that larger positive tilt angles are associated with larger polarity separations. This is the direction predicted by recent theoretical work (D'Silva and Choudhuri, 1992). The explanation for this appears to be that smaller surface polarity separations lead to larger magnetic tension forces, which diminish the effect of the Coriolis force that acts to twist rising flux tubes.