Microflaring of a solar bright point

Abstract

A 50 x 50 arcsec region near the solar disc center containing a bright point (BP) was observed with the SUMER- spectrograph of the SOHO observatory. The data consist of two hours observation of four far-UV emission lines formed between 2 x 10⁴-6x 10⁵ K, with 2 arcsec spatial, 2.8 min temporal and 4 km s^-1 spectral resolution. A striking feature was the strong microflaring of the major persistent BP (with size 8 x 8 arcsec) and the appearance of several short lived transients. The microflaring of each individual 2 x 2 arcsec pixel inside the main BP was coherent, indicating strong interaction of the possible sub arc sec building blocks (magnetic flux tubes). Using the emission measure at 10⁵ K as an indicator of the loop foot point area and magnetic filling factor, we suggest 10 per cent filling factor for the BP observed. This is similar to that on the average surface of a medium-active solar type star. Based on observations with the SUMER-spectrometer on board the SOHO observatory.