  Magnetic field emerges at the surface of the Sun as sunspots and active
regions. This process generates a poloidal magnetic field from a rising
toroidal flux tube, it is a crucial but poorly understood aspect of the solar
dynamo. The emergence of magnetic field is also important because it is a key
driver of solar activity. We show that measurements of horizontal flows at the
solar surface around emerging active regions, in combination with numerical
simulations of solar magnetoconvection, can constrain the subsurface rise speed
of emerging magnetic flux. The observed flows imply that the rise speed of the
magnetic field is no larger than 150 m/s at a depth of 20 Mm, that is, well
below the prediction of the (standard) thin flux tube model but in the range
expected for convective velocities at this depth. We conclude that convective
flows control the dynamics of rising flux tubes in the upper layers of the Sun
and cannot be neglected in models of flux emergence.

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics