The correspondence between small-scale coronal structures and the evolving solar magnetic field

Abstract

Solar coronal bright points, first identified in soft X-rays as X-ray Bright Points (XBPs), are compact, short-lived and associated with small bipolar magnetic flux. Coordinated data obtained during recent X-ray sounding rocket flights on August 15 and December 11, 1987 are used to determine the correspondence of XBPs with time-series, ground-based observations of evolving bipolar magnetic structures, He-I dark points, and the network. The results are consistent with the view that coronal bright points are more likely to be associated with the annihilation of preexisting flux than with emerging flux.