Temporal Evolution of the Inverse Evershed Flow

The inverse Evershed flow (IEF) is an inflow of material into the penumbra of sunspots in the solar chromosphere that occurs along dark, elongated super-penumbral fibrils extending from about the outer edge of the moat cell to the sunspot. The IEF channels exhibit brightenings in the penumbra, where the supersonic IEF descends to the photosphere causing shock fronts with localized heating. We used an 1 hr time series of spectroscopic observations of the chromospheric spectral lines of Ca ii IR at 854 nm and H alpha at 656 nm taken with the Interferometric Bidimensional Spectrometer at the Dunn Solar Telescope to investigate the temporal evolution of IEF channels. Complementary information on the photospheric magnetic field was obtained from observations with the Facility Infrared Spectropolarimeter at 1083 nm and the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager. We find that individual IEF channels are long-lived (10-60 minutes) and only show minor changes in position and flow speed during their lifetime. Initiation and termination of IEF channels takes several minutes. The IEF channels with line-of-sight velocities of about 10 km s(-1) show no lasting impact from transient or oscillatory phenomena with maximal velocity amplitudes of only about 1 km s(-1) that run along them. We could not detect any clear correlation of the location and evolution of IEF channels to local magnetic field properties in the photosphere in the penumbra or moving magnetic features in the sunspot moat. Our results support a picture of the IEF as a field-aligned siphon flow along arched loops. From our data we cannot determine if their evolution is controlled by events at the outer end in the moat or at the inner end in the penumbra.