  Observations of the polar region of the Sun are critically important for
understanding the solar dynamo and the acceleration of solar wind. We carried
out precise magnetic observations on both the North polar region and the quiet
Sun at the East limb with the Spectro-Polarimeter of the Solar Optical
Telescope aboard Hinode to characterize the polar region with respect to the
quiet Sun. The average area and the total magnetic flux of the kG magnetic
concentrations in the polar region appear to be larger than those of the quiet
Sun. The magnetic field vectors classified as vertical in the quiet Sun have
symmetric histograms around zero in the strengths, showing balanced positive
and negative flux, while the histogram in the North polar region is clearly
asymmetric, showing a predominance of the negative polarity. The total magnetic
flux of the polar region is larger than that of the quiet Sun. In contrast, the
histogram of the horizontal magnetic fields is exactly the same between the
polar region and the quiet Sun. This is consistent with the idea that a local
dynamo process is responsible for the horizontal magnetic fields. A
high-resolution potential field extrapolation shows that the majority of
magnetic field lines from the kG-patches in the polar region are open with a
fanning-out structure very low in the atmosphere, while in the quiet Sun,
almost all the field lines are closed.

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics