Editor/Author Correspondence

Section Editor2014-05-29 09:14 AM

Subject: [RAA] MS 1869: Decision on Your article for Research in Astronomy and AstrophysicsRef: RAA/MS 1869

Dear Dr. Ms. Yunfei Yang,

MS #: 1869Title: Different Motion Types of G-band Bright Points in the Quiet SunAuthor(s): Yun-Fei Yang, Hui-Xue Qu, Kai-Fan Ji, Song Feng, Hui Deng, Jia-Ben Lin, Feng Wang

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Sincerely,

Prof. Mingde DingNanjing University, NanjingPhone 025-83596039dmd@raa-journal.orgScientific EditorResearch in Astronomy and Astrophysics

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Reviewer A:

Referee’s report: Different Motion Types of G-band Bright Points in the Quiet Sun

Firstly apologies for the length of time taken on completing this referee report. I needed some time to digest the information and the methodology. Also, apologies if this referee’s report seems excessively long. There is a large amount of grammar/spelling corrections that bulk it out. I’ve tried to beas thorough as possible with these changes.

Overall I think there is merit in the science presented within this paper and the authors employ some novel ideas. The authors use a method they have developed to characterise the motion types of photospheric bright points. These features have been linked previously to various phenomena and are a topic at the fore in solar physics research at present. However, at present some aspects of this paper and the methods employed need to be expanded on before publication.

Some general comments for the authors:

1)    I think that more credit needs to be given to previous studies on this topic. There are research areas that appear to be neglected in the text which are directly related to results that you are discussing here and they need to be included.

2)    You need to check references thoroughly. I’ve noticed that what you have down is wrong in some instances in both the main text and the bibliography (e.g. Nisenson et al. 2003 and Petrovay 2001).

3)    I think the authors could discuss the motivation behind the study a little more.

4)    I have a ‘major’ concern regarding the “motion type index” which needs some clarification.

The English within the paper needs to be drastically improved upon before publication as, at present, the grammar and spelling renders parts of the text unreadable or difficult to understand the point the authors are trying to make. I understand that English is probably not the first language of the authors so I have tried to correct as much as possible along the way. In some instances, however, I could not work out what the authors were trying to say so I will just point these out for the authors to revise.

To aid the process of revision of the manuscript for the authors, I have split this referee report into two sections. The first section (titled “manuscript corrections”) deals with any concerns I have with the science presented in the text or areas where I believe that the authors need to expand on for clarity for readers. The second section (titled “grammar corrections”) will deal with any corrections needed with regards to both spelling and grammar throughout the text. Each point that needs to be addressed in each section will be bulleted.

Manuscript Corrections

Here I will propose some additions or changes that are needed in the manuscript before publication.

-       The introduction is quite short in my view and could be expanded.

-       The discussion on vortices and their relation to rotational motions seems slightly disjointed. For example I think that you could move the statement at paragraph 2 lines 12 – 14 ‘Additionally, ….in the photosphere…’ to be included with the discussion of the Bonet et al. (2008) work earlier in the paragraph.

-       Throughout the introduction you talk of the effect of vortex downdraughts have on rotational components of GBP motions, however, you may also want to include a discussion on simulated work such as that by Shelyag, Fedun, Vogler and others. They have shown (Vogler et al. 2005, A&A, 429, 335, Shelyag et al. 2011 A&A, 526 A5, Fedun et al. 2011 ApJ, 727, 17, Shelyag et al. 2013 ApJ, 776, L4) that vortex motions can exist within these features that can result in energy transfer. These would give greater scope in how GBPs can have rotational motions and the motivation behind your study.

-       From an observations perspective you could also mention Wedemeyer-Bohm et al. 2012, Nature, 486, 505 who believe that these rotational elements are the reason for the “magnetic tornadoes” they see in the chromosphere and transition region. More motivation for quantifying the various motion types.

-       I think that you need to discuss more topics like diffusion. You don’t need to calculate it for your study but you should at least mention it in the introduction. Papers like Cadavid et al. 1999, ApJ, 521, 844; Mostl et al. 2006, (which you cite for GBP properties); Abramenko et al. 2011, ApJ, 743, 133; Chitta et al. 2012 (already cited); and more recently by Jafarzadeh et al. 2014 A&A, 563, A101; Giannattasio et al. 2014 arXiv:1405.0677; Keys et al. 2014

arXiv:1405.3923. Depending on the dispersal regime, which is defined by the value for the diffusion index (often displayed as gamma), we can determine if GBPs are sub-diffusive, normally diffusive or are super diffusive. GBPs will have different paths depending on these values. Normal diffusion is essentially a random walk whereas super diffusion has more Levy flights in the GBP path. These Levy flights make the GBP path appear ‘straighter’ which could explain the ‘straight’ motion types that you define in your paper. This topic definitely needs to be covered before publication.

-       Also in the introduction you need to discuss the drivers of the GBP’s motion and provide suitable citations. It is generally accepted that the buffeting of granules induces motions. I think some papers to read off the top of my head are: Berger et al. 1998 ApJ 506, 439 and Giannattasio et al 2013, ApJ 770, L36 and references therein.

-       In section 2 paragraph 2 you state ‘Usually we set the radius of the circle as two pixels.’ Why is this the case?

-       In section 2 paragraph 3 you cite Feng et al 2013. As the paper dealing with the LMD process is Feng et al. 2012 you do not need this citation here. Please remove or explain the difference in these 2 papers that warrants its inclusion.

-       One of my major concerns with this study is the “motion type index”. The fact that it is just a ratio means that it is a very limited parameter. I could not find any other papers that support this as a valid method for indexing motion type. If you know of any, please cite them in the text. My main issue with this is that I think that it overly generalizes the scene. For instance if I have a GBP that moves from side to side but its start location and final location is the same. This would give the mt value as 0, which would imply that the GBP has a circular path. Or what if the GBP doesn’t move during its lifetime? Again this will be treated as a circular path. Do you check these scenarios? The literature states that having GBPs that don’t move isn’t that uncommon so these stationary GBPs could make it seem like there are more with a ‘rotary’ path. Also, what happens in the case where a GBP moves in a straight line and then has a circular path at the end of its lifetime (similar to #10 in Fig 2)? Do you have any way of commenting on how ‘circular’ the path is? I think that you need to discuss these concerns within the text more. You may want to consider the diffusivity case again. Here the squared displacement of the GBP tells you a lot about the nature of its movements.

-       Again, on the motion type index, how do you decide on the thresholds that determine if it is straight, erratic or circular? Specifically the values 0.80

and 0.36 as they seem a bit ad hoc to me.

-       Fig 4. Could you add say a black curve showing the PDF for all motion types as a whole? This would make it easier to compare to previous work and would allow the relative contribution of each motion type to be assessed.

-       Fig 5. I find the correlation in this figure rather tentative. Is this the best way to display these results? Specifically I find that the linear fit (red line) that you use is rather tentative. You could easily plot a line that falls closer to/within the uncertainty bars which has a shallower gradient. How many GBPs are used to produce this graph? At the moment it looks like just the 10 GBPs of Fig 2 are included. If this is the case then there isn’t a statistically significant sample size to say that this is a real correlation. Perhaps have more points included to demonstrate the relation better or at least state the numbers employed to produce the plot.

-       The uncertainties that you state for the horizontal velocities are very low. How confident are you that these uncertainties are that low? Are they just calculated using the standard error approach (i.e. one standard deviation from the mean)?

-       Fig 6 shows very little that Table 1 doesn’t already demonstrate. Personally I would consider removing it entirely. From what I can see there is little variation during the lifetime except for the rotary type.

-       Why do you divide the evolution of a GBP into 5 stages? That number seems a bit arbitrary to me. Why not 3 or 7? This needs to be explained in the text.

-       Fig 7, again consider adding a black line showing the PDF for all 3 motion types together.

-       Fig 9. The caption needs revising as it is very confusing what the figure is actually showing. Is this the best way to show the point? To me I am not sure entirely what the figure shows particularly as I think it is a bit crowded (I don’t think you need to include the angles 30 90 150 etc..) Also, in the sub-title of the figure you spell histogram wrong.

-       In the results section (or the discussion section if you prefer) I think that a better effort needs to be done to compare these results to those found previously in the literature. You could compare the horizontal velocity values to those studies you mention in the introduction. You could compare the rotary values to those found by Bonet et al. 2008. Some of the diffusion papers I

mentioned previously deal with horizontal range of motion with a value known as the diffusion coefficient which measures the rate of increase in dispersal area (similar to the range). For the direction of motion, as well as Nisenson et al 2003 you may want to look at Keys et al. 2014 who look at preferential flow directions of GBPs or perhaps Verma & Denker 2011, A&A 529, A153 who produce flow maps of GBPs and other features for added context.

-       In the direction of motion section, you note that there is no change in direction between frames, would you expect much change between frames? If the centre of gravity moves by 2 pixels in one frame the GBP will be travelling at ~8km/s. Surely it will be a gradual change anyway? Could you discuss this a bit?

-       The final statement ‘In fact, the number …’ is rather ambiguous. Please expand or revise the statement to make it clear.

Grammar Corrections

Here I will provide areas where I believe the grammar or spelling needs to be changed. If I am unsure of what the author is trying to say I will mark it as ‘revise statement’. Note that you use the phrase ‘straightly’ throughout the text. I am unsure if this is the proper use of the word, though I am fairly sure that it is for more informal use and probably shouldn’t be used in the context of the manuscript. As such I would suggest changing this to ‘moves in a straight line’ or some variant. I will notify places in the text where I find this phrase. ‘Par’ refers to the paragraph number. ‘[ ]’ refers to word that needs to be added into the existing text.

-       Title: ‘Different Motion Types of G-band Bright Points in the Quiet Sun’. This does not need to be capitalised throughout. Therefore should be: ‘Different motion types of G-band bright points in the quiet sun’. Also I think that the authors should consider revising the title to perhaps ‘Characterising motion types…’ or some variant.

-       Affiliations: remove the space between the word Apllication and the comma in affiliation 1 and add a space between the comma and Chinese in affiliation 2.

 

Abstract:

-       Abstract, Line 1: ‘quite’ to ‘quiet’.

-       Abstract, line 5: ‘start-to-end distance’ to ‘displacement’.

-       Abstract, line 6: ‘most of GBPs walk in straight or nearly straight line, a few of them move in a rotary path.’ To ‘most GBPs move in straight or nearly straight lines, while a few move in a rotary path.

-       Abstract line11: ‘..a GBP moves straightly,…’ to ‘… a GBP moves in a straight line,…’

-       Abstract, line 13: ‘…moves straightly…’

-       Abstract, line 14: ‘… the changes from high to slow, then turn to high.’ Revise statement

 

Introduction:

-       Par1 Line 1: ‘… lanes are visible in the solar G-band …’ to ‘…visible in G-band…’

-       Par 1 Line 2: ‘… and are called G-band…’ to ‘and are often referred to as G-band …’

-       Par 1 Line 2: ‘ According to the current theory…’ to ‘According to current theory…’

-       Par 1 Line 2 to 3: ‘… these small-scale motions…’ revise statement.

-       Par 2 Line 1: ‘The recent high resolution observations have gained in interesting of scientists to explore the motions of GBPs.’ to ‘Recent high resolution observations have led scientists to study the motions of GBPs.’

-       Par 2 Line 2: ‘The results show…’ to ‘Results show…’

-       Par 2 Line 3/4: ‘The sample paths of GBPs are illustrated erratically and randomly…’ to ‘ The paths of GBPs are often erratic and random…’

-       Par 2 Line 5 / 6: ‘… which is filled with unsteady rotation while is interspersed with laminar flow…’ revise statement.

-       Par 2 line 7: ‘… described [previously] that…’

-       Par 2 line 9: I have noticed that some references have spaces between the parentheses and the first number (eg. Bonet et al. ( 2008)). These need to be removed. This should be easy to remove in the bibtex entry. Some other examples include Nisenson et al. 2003 and Yang et al. 2014. Please check through the text to remove all of these additional spaces in case I have missed any.

-       Par 2 line 9: ‘Bonet et al. ( 2008) detected the motions of magnetic bright points, which follow spiral paths on the way to being engulfed by a downdraft.’ To ‘Bonet et al. (2008) traced the motions of magnetic bright points which follow spiral paths on the way to being engulfed by a downdraught.’

-       Par 2 line 10 / 11 /12: ‘Yang et al. ( 2014) illustrated that the isolated GBP moves fast at the birth, then decreases to its lowest value in the middle stage, and speeds up in the decay stage until disappearance.’ To ‘Yang et al. (2014) illustrated that isolated GBPs move fast at birth before decreasing to their lowest value in the middle stage of their path, before accelerating in the decay stage until disappearance.’ You could also substitute ‘path’ with ‘existence’ depending on the context you’re looking for.

 

Observations and data reduction:

-       Par 1 line 3 / 4: ‘ The field of view… with a pixel size of 0.054”, and in a quiet region at the center of the solar disk.’ To ‘The field of view… with a pixel size of 0.054”. The telescope is pointed at disk centre.’

-       Par 2 line 1: ‘intension’ to ‘intention’

-       Par2 line 1: ‘registion’ I assume should be ‘registration’ or ‘reduction’?

-       Par 2 line 2: ‘ … based on [a] cross-correlation…’

-       Par 2 line 5: ‘… and G(u,v) are Fourier transform of f(x,y) and g(x,y) separately,…’ to and G(u,v) are the Fourier transform of f(x,y) and g(x,y) respectively, …’

-       Par 2 line 7: ‘… and centering [the] zero-frequency…’

-       Par 2 line 7: ‘… then measure the distances…’ to ‘… then measure the displacements…’

-       Par 2 line 10: ‘… until the either of displacements is …’ to ‘… until the displacement is…’

-       Par 2 line 12: ‘… minimum value of [a] small circle surround[ing] the peak’

-       Par 2 line 14: Our simulation experiment…’ to ‘Our simulated experiment…’

-       Par 3 line 2: ‘segment’ to ‘segmentation’

-       Par 4 line 1: ‘…modeled which the…’ to ‘… modeled where the…’

-       Par 4 line 2: ‘… index or [the] time-slice…’

-       Par 4 line 3: ‘evolutions’ to ‘evolution’

-       Par 4 line 3: ‘… segment of [the] 3D …’

-       Par 4 line 4: ‘… is very similar with the previous…’ to ‘… is very similar to the previous…’

-       Par 4 line 5: remove ‘.’ after ‘footpoints’

-       Par 4 line 6 / 7: ‘… these GBPs walk in different types…’ revise statement

-       Par 4 line 7: ‘… move nearly straightly…’ change straightly.

Classification of motions:

-       Par 1 line 1: ’… look like random…’ to ‘... look random…’

-       Par 2 line 1: ‘The doubtful noise, short-lived and non-isolated GBPs were discarded…’ revise statement

-       Par 2 line 2 / 3 / 4: ‘… reducing the statistical error before classified if… not complete, (4) they occur merging or splitting.’ To ‘… reducing statistical error before classification if… not complete, (4) merging or splitting occurs during their lifetime.

-       Par 2 line 4: ‘… 3D evolutional structures… ‘ to ‘… 3D evolving

structures…’

-       Par 3 line 1: ‘… structures on[to] the two[-]dimensional…’

-       Par 3 line 3: ‘… in each frame[,] t.’

-       Par 3 line 5: ‘The start-to-end distance…’ this is technically the ‘displacement’. You may want to clarify in the text that this taken over the whole lifetime of the GBP so you want to say ‘The displacement over the lifetime of the GBP, D,…’ but that would be at your discretion.

-       Par4 line 1: ‘straightly’

-       Par 4 line 1: ‘… straightly, the[n] mt will…’

-       Par 4 line 2: ‘And if… curve, the mt will… the maximum of mt’ To ‘If … curve, then mt will … the maximum mt’ note don’t start a sentence with ‘and’.

-       Par 5 line 1 & 2: Don’t start a sentence with ‘#’, or indeed the numeral ‘1’ etc.

-       Par 5 line 2: ‘… in nearly [a] straight line …’

-       Par 5 line 2 & 3: ‘… their mt [values] …’

-       Par 6 line 2: ‘ … that the mt of 50 percent of GBPs are larger than 0.75 and that of 20 percent of GBPs are less than 0.5.’ to ‘ … that the mt value of 50 percent of GBPs is larger than 0.75 and 20 percent of GBPs have a mt value of less than 0.5’

-       Par 6 line 3: ‘That means most of GBPs move in straight or nearly straight line, and only a few of GBP move in rotary path.’ To ‘That means most GBPs move in a straight or nearly straight line, and only a few GBPs move in a rotary path.’

-       Par 6 line 6: ‘ … belongs to [the] rotary motion …’

-       Par 6 line 9 / 10: ‘… were categorized into …erratic.’ To ‘… were categorized as having straight motions, about 10 percent (79 GBPs) had rotary motions, and the others were erratic in nature.’

Fig 2.: ‘The X and Y coordinate..’ ‘X’ and ‘Y’ should be lower case and math type in this instance.

Results, Horizontal velocity:

-       Par 1 line 1: ‘… velocity of [a] GBP…’

-       Par 1 line 2: ‘… velocities of all GBPs belong to different types were computed…’ to ‘… velocities of all the GBPs studied were computed…’

-       Par 1 line 3 / 4: Figure 4 shows the PDFs of different motion types in dotted lines and the corresponding curve fit lines in solid lines respectively.’ To ‘Figure 4 shows the PDF for the horizontal velocities of the different motion types in dotted lines and the corresponding curve fit for these are displayed as a solid line.’

-       Par 2 line 3: ‘ … result indicates that [the] difference …’’

-       Par 3 line 1: ‘ [A] total of 753 …’

-       Par 3 line 2: ‘ … were divided equally into 10 bins with same amount and the means and standard errors of …’ To ‘… were divided into 10 equal bins. The mean and standard error of …’

-       Par 3 line 3: ‘… velocities belong[ing] to …’

-       Par 3 line 3 / 4: ‘The values and error bars using the means and their standard errors …’ revise statement

-       Par 3 line 4 / 5: ‘… for the means is shown with a red line.’ To ‘… for the means is displayed in red.

-       Par 3 line 5: ‘… mt and means of horizontal velocities is …’ to  ‘… mt and the mean horizontal velocity is …’

-       Par 4 line 1: ‘… moving straightly…’

-       Par 4 line 2: ‘… moving in [a] rotary path’.

-       Par 5 line 1 / 2: ‘… quantified the evolutions of GBPs belong to different types in term of velocity.’ To ‘… quantified the evolution of GBPs for the different motion types in terms of velocity.’

-       Par 5 line 3: ‘… fitted to [a] [R]ayleigh distribution.’

-       Par 5 line 5: ‘… straightly …’

-       Par 5 line 7 / 8 / 9: ‘… it can be seen that GBP … at the birth, then decreases to its lowest value … the middle stage, and speeds up … until disappearance.’ To ‘… it can be seen that GBPs move … at birth, then decelerates to their lowest velocity … and accelerate again … until they disappear.’

Results, Horizontal range of motion:

-       Par 1 line 3: ‘… GBP in [the] x axis … are in [the] y axis.’ Remember the x & y are lower case and in math type in LaTeX.

-       Par 1 line 4: ‘… and their log[-]normal fitting curves in solid lines of three motion types.’ Revise statement.

-       Par 1 line 5 ‘… PDFs are very long, so we cut them…’ Awkward statement. Perhaps ‘To aid in the depiction of the PDFs, we truncated the extended tails.’ Would be better.

-       Par 1 line 5: ‘… the maximum of horizontal range is 919.1km in straight motion type, 706.3 in erratic and 630.0 in rotary, respectively.’ To ‘… the maximum horizontal range is 919.1km for the straight motion type, 706.3km for the erratic, and 630.0km for the rotary type, respectively.’ Also I think normal convention states that you don’t need to include the decimal points when writing these numbers, just round the numbers up or down.

-       Par 1 line 7: ‘… expectations of [the] horizontal ranges …’

-       Par 2 line 1: ‘…  horizontal ranges of motion of straight …’ to ‘… horizontal ranges for both the straight …’

-       Par 2 line 3 / 4 / 5: Figure 8 shows that the … a red solid line.’ To ‘Figure 8 shows the mean values and the associated standard errors for the horizontal range of motion in blue, with the best linear fit for the mean values displayed as a red solid line.’

-       Par 2 line 5: ‘… mt and means of horizontal …’ to ‘… mt and the mean horizontal …’

-       Par 2 line 6: ‘… straightly …’

Results, Direction of motion:

-       Par 1 line 1: ‘… whether the GBPs drift…’ to ‘… whether GBPs drift …’

-       Par 1 line 2 / 3: ‘Figure 9 … showing…’ to ‘Figure 9 is a polar plot of the angles showing …’

-       Par 1 line 4: ‘… in direction angles …’ revise statement.

-       Par 2 line 2: ‘… of [the] different … in Figure 10.’ (remove 4 words after ‘Figure 10’ here.)

-       Par 2 line 3: ‘… all distributions show peak…’ to ‘… all distributions peak…’

-       Par 3 line 1: ‘… exactly [the] same…’

-       Par 4 line 3: ‘… mean and thinner …’ to ‘… mean with thinner …’

-       Par4 line 5:  ‘… mean and fatter tails.’ To ‘… mean with fatter tails.’ I would also be inclined to not use the word ‘fatter’ here either as it is informal English. Something like ‘larger’ may be better.

Discussion and conclusion:

-       Par 1 line 1 / 2: ‘… in the quite sun using the Hinode/SOT G-band high resolution image sequence.’ To ‘… in the quiet sun using a high resolution G-band image sequence acquired with Hinode/SOT.’

-       Par 1 line 2: ‘… the motions look like random, it still can …’ to ‘… the motions look random, they can …’

-       Par 1 line 3: ‘define’ not ‘defined’.

-       Par 1 line 3: ‘displacement’ not ‘distance’

-       Par 1 line 4: ‘… distribution of [this] index,’

-       Par 1 line 4 / 5: ‘… most of GBPs walk in straight or nearly straight lines, only a few of them move in rotary paths.’ To ‘… most GBPs follow straight or nearly straight lines, with only a few moving in rotary paths.’

-       Par 1 line 6: ‘… three types by [imposing] two [subjective] thresholds. [A]bout 40 …’

-       Par 1 line 6: ‘… categorized into [a] straight …’

-       Par 1 line 7: ‘… into [a] rotary motion, and [the] others [fall] into [a motion type we define as erratic].’

-       Par 2 line 2: replace ‘present’ with ‘have’.

-       Par 2 line 4: ‘… correlation with [the] index …’

-       Par 2 line 4: ‘… straightly …’

-       Par 3 line 1: ‘… of GBPs [for the] different motion …’

-       Par 3 line 2: remove ‘respectively’.

-       Par 3 line 2: ‘… straightly …’

-       Par 3 line 2: ‘… has a high[er] velocity …’

-       Par 3 line 4: ‘… a GBP with [a] rotary motion …’

-       Par 3 line 6: ‘The evolution of GBP who follow curve path in term of velocity is agreed with the …’ to ‘The evolution of GBPs that follow curved paths, in terms of velocity, is in agreement with the …’

-       Par 3 line 7: ‘Because the GBPs in straight motion type have a …’ to ‘As GBPs which display straight motions have a …’ Don’t start a sentence with ‘because’.

-       Par 3 line 8: ‘… is mainly contributed by the rotary motion.’ To ‘… is mainly caused by GBPs displaying rotary motions.’

-       Par 3 line 12: replace ‘described’ with ‘suggest’.

-       Par 3 line 12: ‘… vortex event causes the footpoints of magnetic field structures to rotate …’ to ‘… vortex events result in the rotation of the footpoints of magnetic field structure…’

-       Par 4 line 1: replace ‘directions’ with ‘direction’.

-       Par 4 line 1: ‘… straightly …’

-       Par 4 line 1: replace ‘The’ with ‘This’.

-       Par 4 line 2: ‘… probably due to the [fact that] observations [were taken at] disk center.’

-       Par 4 line 2: ‘Besides that, we not only confirmed the …’ to ‘As well as this result, we also confirm the …’

-       Par 4 line 3: ‘… Nisenson et al. (2003) [in] that …’

-       Par 4 line 3 / 4: ‘… frames, but also discussed that …’ to ‘… frames, but additionally we discuss that …’

-       Par 4 line 4: ‘… kurtoisises of [the] distributions in [the] three …’

-       Par 4 line 5: ‘… platykurtic for [the] others.’

-       Par 5 line 1: replace ‘It makes…’ with ‘It lets …’

-       Par 5 line 2: ‘… the characteristics of them possibly.’ Replace ‘the’ with ‘their’ and remove ‘of them possibly.’

-       Par 5 line 4: ‘… categorized into rotary …’ to ‘… categorized as a rotary …’

-       Par 5 line 5: replace ‘… we got in …’ with ‘… we obtain in …’

-       Fig 5: ‘The red straight solid line …’ to ‘The solid red line…’

-       Table 1: Revise caption. Also each word doesn’t need to be capitalsied in the caption. Just the first word.

-       Fig 7: ‘… drawn with solid …’ to ‘… drawn as a solid …’

-       Fig 8: ‘… using the means and their standard errors …’ to ‘… using the mean and the associated standard errors …’

-       Fig 9: ‘… directions of GBP belong to straight …’ to ‘… GBPs for straight …’

-       Fog 10: ‘The PDFs of delta phi of straight …’ to The PDFs of delta phi for straight …’

Author2014-07-07 12:02 AM

Subject: Different Motion Types of G-band Bright Points in the Quiet SunDear Prof. Dingand referee,

We appreciated your useful comments and constructive suggestions of our manuscript entitled “Different Motion Types of G-band Bright Points in the Quiet Sun” with serial number of 1869 to RAA.We have modified the manuscript according to referee's report.Attached is the revised manuscript and response to referee.

We are looking forward to your response!

Best wishes.

Yours sincerely.Yunfei Yang

Kunming Univ. of Science and Technology Kunming,Chinayfyangkmust@gmail.comflyingwithcloud@qq.comYunFei Yang________________________________________________________________________Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics http://www.raa-journal.org

Section Editor2014-07-25 10:10 AM

Subject: [RAA] MS 1869: Decision on your article for Research in Astronomy and AstrophysicsRef: RAA/MS 1869

Dear Dr. Yunfei Yang,

MS #: 1869Title: Different Motion Types of G-band Bright Points in the Quiet SunAuthor(s): Yun-Fei Yang, Hui-Xue Qu, Kai-Fan Ji, Song Feng, Hui Deng, Jia-Ben Lin, Feng Wang

Please find the referee’s report on your above submission to Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics. I suggest you take fully referee's report into account in your revised version. When submitting the revised version of your manuscript, please include a detailed cover letter containing point-by-point responses to referee's report and there should also be a copy of the revised

manuscript with changes marked in red or bold face to allow the Reviewers to examine the content.

If the referee’s report is not enclosed in this email, you can find the referee report on the website of Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics located at http://raa.raa-journal.org.

Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics has adopted a policy that manuscript files become inactive, and are considered to have been withdrawn, six months after the most recent referee’s report goes to the authors, provided that a revised version has not been received since then.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me.

Please acknowledge the receipt of this email.

Sincerely,

Prof. Mingde DingNanjing University, NanjingPhone 025-83596039dmd@raa-journal.orgScientific EditorResearch in Astronomy and Astrophysics------------------------------------------------------Reviewer A:

Referee’s report: Characterising motion types of G-band bright points in the quiet Sun

 

The changes made by the authors to the original manuscript vastly improves the submitted manuscript and I believe that the paper is now ready for publication, with only minor alterations. Estimates for the diffusion index and coefficient for each motion type have been included which gives a better indication of the dynamics of these features. The introduction section has been improved and the discussion section has been improved to discuss the context of these results with respect to other studies.

I have very few changes to the manuscript, most of which are grammatical errors. There are only a couple of changes to be made besides the grammatical changes. I will list these changes first and then give a detailed list

of grammatical changes (in a similar format to the previous referee’s report).

In paragraph 3 of the introduction you state: ``One important component of turbulence is diffusion whose efficiency is expressed by the diffusion index (gamma) and diffusion coefficient (K)’’. The wording of this is not strictly correct as at present it implies that both values give the efficiency of diffusion whereas it is the diffusion coefficient which gives the efficiency and the diffusion index tells us which diffusive regime the features display. I would suggest changing the statement to something like: ``One important component of turbulence is diffusion; where the dispersion mechanism is defined by the diffusion index (gamma) and the efficiency of this mechanism is given by the diffusion coefficient (K).’’

In the results section paragraph 3 you state: ``The results of classification and correlation analysis are very coinciding,’’ I am not sure what you mean by coinciding. I imagine that you mean that they are proportional, in which case you should change the statement to one of the following: ``... correlation analysis correspond to one another, and both...’’ or ``... correlation analysis are very similar, and both...’’ or ``... correlation analysis are proportional, and both...’’

In the discussion section where (Par 7, Line 11) you state ‘... along the time scales.’ I think that you have forgotten to put in the actual time scales. Maybe you should add them here.

Grammatical changesIntroduction:

Par 1, Line 1: Change ‘visible clearly’ to ‘clearly visible’

Par 1, Line 2&3: Change the sentence ‘Recent studies... buffeting of granules’ to ‘Recent studies show that a GBPs motion is determined mainly by the buffeting motion of granules.’

Par 1, Line 7: Small case ‘K’ on ‘kinetic’

Par1, Line 7: Change ‘...generating Kinetic and Alfven waves...’ to ‘... generating kinetic waves, Alfven waves and so on...’

Par 2, Line 1& 2: ‘Results show that the mean horizontal velocity is 1-2km/s...’ to ‘Results show mean horizontal velocities of 1-2 km/s...’

Par 2, Line 3 & 4: Change ‘Isolated ... stage until disappearance’ to ‘Isolated

GBPs move fast at birth, then decrease to their lowest velocities in the middle stage of their lifetime, and then they accelerate again in the decay stage until their eventual disappearance.’

Par 3, Line 2 & 3: Change outlined previously.

Par 3, Line 4: Change ‘recent authors’ to ‘recent studies’

Par 3, Line 5: Change ‘agreed’ to ‘agree’

Par 4, Line 2: Change to ‘... as a primary candidate mechanism, with roots in the photosphere, for energy transport...’

Par 4, Line 8: ‘observations of [the] photosphere.’ Insert ‘the’

Par 4, Line 10: Change to ‘Goode et al. (2010) noted that colliding granules create a vortex...’

Par 4, last sentence: Change ‘Addionally .... atmospheric layers.’ To ‘Additionally, Wedemeyer-Bohm et al. (2012) demonstrated, using a series of co-spatial images at different atmospheric layers, that ``magnetic tornadoes’’ in the chromosphere and transition region results in rotational motions of the associated photospheric bright points.’

Par 5, Line 1: ‘... GBPs are chaotic...’

Observations and data reduction

Par 1, Line 1 ‘... images were obtained...’

Par 1, Line 3 & 4: ‘The field-of-view (FOV) is 27.7’’x27.7’’ with a ppixel size of 0.054’’. The telescope was pointed at a quiet region at disc center.’

Par 3, Line 3: ‘This assumption is...’

Par 3, Line 5: ‘... procedure could be as high as ...’

Par 5, Line 2 & 3: ‘The 3D structures in the space-time cube represent the evolution of GBPs’

Par 5, Line 6 & 7: ‘... that these GBPs move in different types with time’ confusing statement. Possibly change to ‘... these GBPs have different motion types during their lifetime.’

Par 5, Line 8: Change ‘circle’ to ‘circular’.

Classification of motions

Par 2, Line 1: ‘Initially, some GBPs were... before classification. A GBP is discarded if (1)...’

Par 2, Line 3: ‘... its life cycle is not complete or (5) if merging or splitting occurs during...’

Par 3, Line 1 & 2: ‘Next, we put stationary GBPs, or those that have limited motion during their lifetimes, aside to measure the dynamics of the GBPs in detail.’

Par 3, Line 7: ‘... r is [the] radius ...’

Par 3, Line 8: ‘Bodnarova et al. (2013) took about 45% ...’

Par 3, Line 9: ‘... final location, the value d will be...’

Par 3, Line 10: ‘This could result in misjudging it...’

Par 3, Line 10: ‘... to address this issue, we ...’

Par 3, Line 12: ‘... a single GBP in [the] x axis...’

Par 3, Line 13: ‘... are in [the] y axis; r’ is [the] radius of...’

Par 3, Line 15: ‘... 43% of them are below 1...’

Par 3, Line 16: ‘About 25% are greater than 2 ...’

Par 6, Line 5: ‘... we have not found a spiral path similar to those reported by Bonet et al. (2008).’

Par 7, Line 8: You don’t need to capitalize ‘Exponetial’

Par 7, Line 10: ‘... motion of mt at a value of 0.8 and another between erratic and rotary motion at a value of 0,4. The threshold of 0.8 is reliable for distinguishing the straight motion type.’

Par 7, Line 11: ‘However, [the] threshold...’

Par 7, Line 12: ‘... the rotary motion of the GBP.’

Par 7, Line 17: ‘.... cases, will be discussed...’

 

Results:

Horizontal Velocity

 

Par 3, Line 5: ‘... were divided into 10 equal bins.’

Par 3, Line 7: ‘.... mean horizontal velocity, and obtained a value of 0.88.’

Par 3, Line 8: ‘... very coinciding...’ I’m not sure what you mean here maybe change to ‘very similar’ or ‘... correlation analysis correspond...’ or ‘... correlation analysis are proportional...’

Par 4, Line 5: ‘... GBPs have a similar evolutional...’

Par 4, Line 6: ‘... how many stages that the GBPs are divided into during their lifetime.’

Par 4, Line 9: ‘... as a whole are listed.’

Par 4, Line 15: ‘... images at different atmospheric layers.’

Diffusion

Par 1, Line 1: ‘... diffusion processes represent the efficiency of GBP dispersal in the photosphere...’

Par 1, Line 3 & 4: ‘... gamma is the diffusion index and C is a...’

Par 1, Line 6: ‘... of [the] three motion...’

Par 1, Line 8: ‘(dashed pink line)’

Par 1, Line 9: ‘... extended tail of [the] mean-squared...’

Par 1, Line 10: ‘A black line shows the best power fit ...’ Don’t need to capitalize power here either.

Par1, Line 11: ‘... which displays significant super-diffusive behavior.’

Par 1, Line 13: ‘... contribution to super, or even ballistic diffusion...’

Par 1, Line 15: ‘ They move slow and contribute to a sub-diffusive regime.’

Par 2, Line 2: ‘... rotary motion type, respectively. We find values for gamma of 2.13...’

Par 2, Line 4: ‘... of time, tau, of the three motion types...’

Par 3, Line 3:’ ... the lifetime of [the] GBP.’

Par 3, Line 5: ‘Considering all motion types as a whole...’

Par 3, Line 6: ‘The results for all three motion types are consistent with the results found for velocity and gamma.’

 

Direction of motion

Par 1, Line 3: ‘... of a GBP at its start location and its final location) with the reference axis.’

Par 1, Line 5: ‘The distribution does not show...’ Note also that in formal writing you should never use contractions. i.e. for words like “doesn’t”, “don’t” and “it’s”; for formal writing you should always write these as “does not”, “do not” and “it is”.

Par 2, Line 1: ‘In relation to previous studies...’

Par 2, Line 5: ‘... the direction of motion will only gradually change.’

Par 3, Line 2: ‘... is significantly leptokurtic...’

Par 3, Line 5 ‘... which is slightly leptokurtic.’

 

Discussion and conclusion

 

Par 1, Line 5: ‘... radius of the GBP if we define it as having circular geometry.’

Par 1, Line 5: ‘... 43% of GBPs studied displaying m’<1...’

Par 1, Line 6: ‘... do not move beyond their own boundaries during their lifetimes.’

Par 1, Line 6: ‘The remaining 429 non-stationary GBPs are classified...’

Par 1, Line 8: ‘ The exponential ... ‘ no need for capitalization.

Par 2, Line 1 & 2: ‘It allows us to distinguish straight and rotary motions and allows us to explore the characteristics of different motion types.’

Par 2, Line 3: ‘... so the boundaries between these...’

Par 2, Line 4: ‘... in a straight line at first then has...’

Par 2, Line 5 & 6: ‘... rotary motion in its whole path of motion, the...’

Par 2, Line 8: ‘... fact, the expansion and evolution of granules may result in the interruption of a rotary path of a GBP, so....’

Par 2, Line 10: ‘.... moves from side to side with...’

Par 2, Line 11: ‘... such as #10, these will be...’

Par 3, Line 1: ‘... of all motion types is 1.77km/s.’

Par 3, Line 2: ‘Our result is slightly elevated in comparison to previously published studies. One reason may...’

Par 3, Line 3: ‘... to the data[,] with...’

Par 3, Line 3 & 4: ‘... temporal resolution/sampling across the various studies, and the fact that GBPs are identified with different methods in each of the studies (Utz et al....’

Par 3, Line 4: ‘... 1-2 km/s for different spatial and temporal sampling, and indicated...

Par 4, Line 9: capital “W” on “de Wijn”

Par 4, Line 12: ‘... 15% have velocities...’

Par 4, Line 12 & 14: ‘... proportion is probably the result of the higher velocity stated above.’

Par 5, Line 1: ‘.... non-stationary[,] isolated GBPs.’

Par 5, Line 2: ‘Recent authors have agreed...’

Par 5, Line 4: ‘.... calculated the squared-displacement of each GBP and derived gamma = ...’

Par 5, Line 7: ‘... in internetwork regions.’

Par 6, Line 1: ‘ We find that gamma is 2.13...’

Par 6, Line 2: ‘The larger value of gamma for straight motion type come from the fact that these GBPs moves continuously in the same direction and have more Levy flights in their path.’

Par 6, Line 3 & 4: ‘ On average, they move faster and accelerate with time.’

Par 6, Line 4: ‘ ... motion makes a large contribution to super, or even ballistic diffusion.’

Par 6, Line 5: ‘... the smaller the gamma value of rotary...’

Par 6, Line 6: ‘This result sin a sub-diffusive regime.’

Par 6, Line 9: ‘... therefore calculated the trajectory...’

Par 7, Line 7: ‘... whereas the gamma value of 1.34+/-0.06 infers a super-diffusive regime.’

Par 7, Line 9: ‘Jafarzadeh et al. (2014) found K = ....’

Par 7, Line 10: ‘... estimated that the diffusivity...’

Par 7, Line 11: ‘... range could be the result of different ...’

Par 7, Line 12: ‘..., active region), and/or different temporal ...’

Par 8, Line 1: ‘The distribution of the directions of...’

Par 8, Line 6: ‘Both studies utilized G-band images taken with the Dutch Open Telescope with a temporal sampling of 30s.’

Par 8, Line 8: ‘... from the Hinode/SOT with temporal sampling of 11s.’

 

Figures

 

Figure 1: ‘... move in different motion types’

Figure 3: You don’t need to capitalize ‘exponential’

Figure 4: ‘The PDFs are curve fitted with a Rayleigh curve which is drawn with...’

Figure 4: ‘The PDF and curve fit for all motion types as a whole is drawn in black...’

Figure 5: ‘All GBPs were divided into 10 equal bins.’

Figure 6: ‘The mean-squared displacement...of straight...’

Figure 6: ‘The mean-squared displacement for all motion types as a whole[,] with time[,] is displayed as a dashed pink line.’

Figure 6: I don’t think that you need to capitalize “power”

Figure 7: ‘... as a function of time[,] tau[,] on a...’

Figure 7: ‘.... fits for straight, erratic and rotary motions are displayed in blue...’

Figure 7: ‘These are fitted for times tau<495s, ....’

Figure 7: ‘A solid line shows the best ...’

Figure 8: ‘... angle of GBPs for the straight...’

Figure 9: ‘The black line shows...’

Figure 9: ‘... is ticked in degrees.’

Figure 9: The x axis header should probably be “degrees” as opposed to “degree”.

Table 2: ‘Overview of mean velocities of GBPs in previous studies.’

 

------------------------------------------------------________________________________________________________________________Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics http://www.raa-journal.org

Author2014-07-27 11:59 AM

Subject: 1869Characterising motion types of G-band bright points in the quiet SunDear Prof. Ding and referee,

We appreciated your useful comments and detailed suggestions of our manuscript entitled “Characterising motion types of G-band bright points in the quiet Sun” with serial number of 1869 to RAA.We have modified the manuscript according to referee's report.Attached is the revised manuscript and response to referee.

We are looking forward to your response!

Best wishes.

Yours sincerely.Yunfei Yang

Kunming Univ. of Science and Technology Kunming,China yfyangkmust@gmail.com flyingwithcloud@qq.com______________________________________________________________

__________Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics http://www.raa-journal.org

Section Editor2014-07-29 10:17 PM

Subject: [RAA] MS 1869: Your article has been accepted for Research in Astronomy and AstrophysicsRef: RAA/MS 1869

Dear Ms. Yunfei Yang,

MS #:1869Title: Characterising motion types of G-band bright points in the quiet SunAuthor(s): Yun-Fei Yang, Hui-Xue Qu, Kai-Fan Ji, Song Feng, Hui Deng, Jia-Ben Lin, Feng Wang

We are pleased to inform you that the above article has been accepted for publication in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Correspondence concerning the logistical aspects of publishing this manuscript should be directed to raa@raa-journal.org. If you have any additional questions concerning the scientific content of your manuscript, please direct them to me.

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Authors are encouraged to submit their papers to astro-ph (http://lanl.arxiv.org/) to receive further attention.

Congratulations on the acceptance of your paper. I look forward to reading it in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics!

Sincerely Yours,

Prof. Mingde DingNanjing University, NanjingPhone 025-83596039

dmd@raa-journal.orgScientific EditorResearch in Astronomy and Astrophysics