Spatiotemporal scaling of solar surface flows

Phys Rev Lett. 2001 Jun 25;86(26 Pt 1):5894-7. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.5894.

Abstract

The sun provides an excellent natural laboratory for nonlinear phenomena. We use motions of magnetic bright points on the solar surface, at the smallest scales yet observed, to study the small scale dynamics of the photospheric plasma. The paths of the bright points are analyzed within a continuous time random walk framework. Their spatial and temporal scaling suggests that the observed motions are the walks of imperfectly correlated tracers on a turbulent fluid flow in the lanes between granular convection cells.