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American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2(740), p. L40, 2011

DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/740/2/l40

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The Velocity Distribution of Solar Photospheric Magnetic Bright Points

Journal article published in 2011 by Peter H. Keys, Mihalis Mathioudakis, David B. Jess ORCID, Sergiy Shelyag ORCID, Philip J. Crockett, Damian J. Christian ORCID, and Francis P. Keenan
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

We use high spatial resolution observations and numerical simulations to study the velocity distribution of solar photospheric magnetic bright points. The observations were obtained with the Rapid Oscillations in the Solar Atmosphere instrument at the Dunn Solar Telescope, while the numerical simulations were undertaken with the MURaM code for average magnetic fields of 200 G and 400 G. We implemented an automated bright point detection and tracking algorithm on the dataset, and studied the subsequent velocity characteristics of over 6000 structures, finding an average velocity of approximately 1 km/s, with maximum values of 7 km/s. Furthermore, merging magnetic bright points were found to have considerably higher velocities, and significantly longer lifetimes, than isolated structures. By implementing a new and novel technique, we were able to estimate the background magnetic flux of our observational data, which is consistent with a field strength of 400 G. ; Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJL, 12 pages, 2 figures