Bibcode
Sánchez-Almeida, J.; Bonet, J. A.; Viticchié, B.; Del Moro, D.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 715, Issue 1, pp. L26-L29 (2010).
Advertised on:
5
2010
Citations
66
Refereed citations
56
Description
We present a visual determination of the number of bright points (BPs)
existing in the quiet Sun, which are structures though to trace intense
kG magnetic concentrations. The measurement is based on a 0farcs1
angular resolution G-band movie obtained with the Swedish Solar
Telescope at the solar disk center. We find 0.97 BPs Mm-2,
which is a factor 3 larger than any previous estimate. It corresponds to
1.2 BPs per solar granule. Depending on the details of the segmentation,
the BPs cover between 0.9% and 2.2% of the solar surface. Assuming their
field strength to be 1.5 kG, the detected BPs contribute to the solar
magnetic flux with an unsigned flux density between 13 G and 33 G. If
network and inter-network regions are counted separately, they contain
2.2 BPs Mm-2 and 0.85 BPs Mm-2, respectively.