Evidence for Non-potential Magnetic Fields in the Quiet Sun

A comparison of BBSO H centerline ltergrams and videomagnetograms was made to investigate the existence of non-potential magnetic elds in the quiet Sun near magnetic network. We use the bril structure in the H images as a proxy for the horizontal chromospheric magnetic eld which we compare with the horizontal eld obtained by potential extrapolation of the observed, line-of-sight photospheric eld. The quiet-sun eld was found to be consistently and signiicantly non-potential in each of the three elds of view studied. A transient extreme ultraviolet (EUV) brightening, known as a blinker, occurred during the observations of a region where the eld is highly non-potential, suggesting a connection between magnetic reconnection and non-potentiality.