DOT tomography of the solar atmosphere -: VI.: Magnetic elements as bright points in the blue wing of Hα

High-resolution solar images taken in the blue wing of the Balmer H alpha line with the Dutch Open Telescope show intergranular magnetic elements as strikingly bright features, similar to, but with appreciably larger contrast over the surrounding granulation than their more familiar manifestation as G-band bright points. Part of this prominent appearance is due to low granular contrast, without granule/lane brightness reversal as, e.g., in the wings of Ca II H&K. We use 1D and 2D radiative transfer modeling and 3D solar convection and magnetoconvection simulations to reproduce and explain the H alpha wing images. We find that the blue H alpha wing obeys near-LTE line formation. It appears particularly bright in magnetic elements through low temperature gradients. The granulation observed in the blue wing of H alpha has low contrast because of the lack of H alpha opacity in the upper photosphere, Doppler cancellation, and large opacity sensitivity to temperature working against source function sensitivity. We conclude that the blue H alpha wing represents a promising proxy magnetometer to locate and track isolated intermittent magnetic elements, a better one than the G band and the wings of Ca II H&K although less sharp at given aperture.