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American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2(722), p. L188-L193, 2010

DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/722/2/l188

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The area distribution of solar magnetic bright points

Journal article published in 2010 by Philip J. Crockett, Mihalis Mathioudakis, David B. Jess ORCID, Sergiy Shelyag ORCID, Francis P. Keenan, Damian J. Christian ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Magnetic Bright Points (MBPs) are among the smallest observable objects on the solar photosphere. A combination of G-band observations and numerical simulations is used to determine their area distribution. An automatic detection algorithm, employing 1-dimensional intensity profiling, is utilized to identify these structures in the observed and simulated datasets. Both distributions peak at an area of $≈$45000 km$^2$, with a sharp decrease towards smaller areas. The distributions conform with log-normal statistics, which suggests that flux fragmentation dominates over flux convergence. Radiative magneto-convection simulations indicate an independence in the MBP area distribution for differing magnetic flux densities. The most commonly occurring bright point size corresponds to the typical width of intergranular lanes. Comment: Astrophysical Journal, accepted