SCIENCE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES THE SCIENCE GOAL OF THIS PROJECT IS TO DETERMINE THE STATISTICAL PROPERTIES OF MAGNETIC FLUX EMERGENCE IN THE QUIET SUN AND TO USE THESE PROPERTIES TO PROBE THE STRUCTURE OF MAGNETIC FLUX JUST BELOW THE SOLAR SURFACE. RELEVANCE TO DECADAL SURVEY THIS PROJECT IS RELEVANT TO THE DECADAL SURVEY GOAL 1) DETERMINE THE ORIGINS OF THE SUN S ACTIVITY AND 4) DISCOVER AND CHARACTERIZE FUNDAMENTAL PROCESSES THAT OCCUR BOTH WITHIN THE HELIOSPHERE AND THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE. METHODOLOGY INCLUDING DATA MODELS AND ANALYSIS USING SDO/HMI MAGNETOGRAMS WE WILL CONDUCT A SURVEY OF NON-ACTIVE-REGION FLUX EMERGENCE OVER MUCH OF THE SOLAR DISK DURING SEVERAL BRIEF (~1 DAY) PERIODS. WE WILL ADAPT AND USE STATE-OF-THE-ART STATISTICAL TECHNIQUES TO DETERMINE WHETHER THERE ARE SPATIOTEMPORAL PATTERNS IN THE EMERGENCE LOCATIONS AND WHETHER AND HOW THOSE PATTERNS ARE DEPENDENT ON THE SCALE OF FLUX EMERGENCE. WE WILL CONDUCT A SIMILAR ANALYSIS ON BOTH NATIVE- AND DEGRADED-RESOLUTION LARGE-DOMAIN NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS OF BOTH THE SMALLSCALE DYNAMO AND MAGNETO-CONVECTION. AFTER DETERMINING WHETHER FLUX EMERGENCE IN THE SIMULATIONS EXHIBITS THE SAME PATTERNS AND DEPENDENCIES (OR LACK THEREOF) AS THE DATA WE WILL THEN USE THE SIMULATIONS TO EXPLORE THE SOURCE OF THESE PATTERNS AND TO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCES AMONG THE SIMULATIONS AND BETWEEN THE SIMULATIONS AND THE REAL SUN. THIS COMBINATION OF ANALYSIS OF DATA AND SIMULATIONS WILL ALLOW US TO DETERMINE WHETHER FOR EXAMPLE SIMULTANEOUS BUT LARGELY SEPARATED (50-150 MM) FLUX EMERGENCE EVENTS ARE SIGNATURES OF LARGE-SCALE SUBSURFACE MAGNETIC STRUCTURES.