Dynamics of isolated magnetic bright points derived from Hinode/SOT G-band observations

Abstract

Context: Small-scale magnetic fields in the solar photosphere can be identified in high-resolution magnetograms or in the G-band as magnetic bright points (MBPs). Rapid motions of these fields can cause magneto-hydrodynamical waves and can also lead to nanoflares by magnetic field braiding and twisting. The MBP velocity distribution is a crucial parameter for estimating the amplitudes of those waves and the amount of energy they can contribute to coronal heating. Aims: The velocity and lifetime distributions of MBPs are derived from solar G-band images of a quiet sun region acquired by the Hinode/SOT instrument with different temporal and spatial sampling rates. Methods: We developed an automatic segmentation, identification and tracking algorithm to analyse G-Band image sequences to obtain the lifetime and velocity distributions of MBPs. The influence of temporal/spatial sampling rates on these distributions is studied and used to correct the obtained lifetimes and velocity distributions for these digitalisation effects. Results: After the correction of algorithm effects, we obtained a mean MBP lifetime of (2.50 ± 0.05) min and mean MBP velocities, depending on smoothing processes, in the range of (1-2) km s-1. Corrected for temporal sampling effects, we obtained for the effective velocity distribution a Rayleigh function with a coefficient of (1.62 ± 0.05) km s-1. The x- and y-components of the velocity distributions are Gaussians. The lifetime distribution can be fitted by an exponential function. © 2010 ESO.