Microflaring of a solar Bright Point ?

A 50 x 50 arc sec region near the solar disc center containing a bright point (BP) was observed with the SUMERspectrograph of the SOHO observatory. The data consist of two hours observation of four far-UV emission lines formed between 2 10 – 6 10 K, with 2 arc sec spatial, 2.8 min temporal and 4 km/s 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 arc sec 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 10 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.