Photospheric Sources and Brightening of the Internetwork Chromosphere

We analyze a unique 9 hr sequence of near-simultaneous, high-resolution and high-cadence G-band and K-line solar filtergrams, together with magnetograms of lower cadence and resolution. Our focus is on the phenomena surrounding discrete photospheric darkening "events" in internetwork G-band intensities. 72% of the darkenings are followed after 2 minutes by K-line brightenings. In the remaining cases, the darkenings are instead preceded by K-line brightenings 2 minutes earlier. Equivalent results are found when reference is shifted to K-line brightening events, although these two sets overlap by no more than 15%. The timing and coupling of the photospheric darkenings and chromospheric brightenings appear to be regulated by a preexisting 4 minute oscillation of the solar atmosphere. Other oscillations with periods in the range 1-8 minutes also are present, and in general the wave power is doubled at the time of an event. Our results favor an acoustic source for enhanced amplitudes of K-line intensity oscillations. The magnetic field acts as a passive tracer of horizontal photospheric flows that converge on the photospheric darkening events and then rebound.