Doppler Events in the Solar Photosphere: The Coincident Superposition of Fast Granular Flows and p-mode Coherence Patches

Abstract

Observations of the solar photosphere show spatially-compact large-amplitude Doppler velocity events with short lifetimes. In data from the Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment (IMaX) on the first flight of the Sunrise balloon in 2009, events with velocities in excess of 4{\sigma} from the mean can be identified in both intergranular downflow lanes and granular upflows. We show that the statistics of such events are consistent with the random superposition of strong convective flows and p-mode coherence patches. Such coincident superposition has implications for the interpretation of acoustic wave sources in the solar photosphere, and may be important to the interpretation of spectral line profiles formed in solar photosphere.