  The presence of photospheric magnetic reconnection has long been thought to
give rise to short and impulsive events, such as Ellerman bombs (EBs) and Type
II spicules. In this article, we combine high-resolution, high-cadence
observations from the Interferometric BIdimensional Spectrometer (IBIS) and
Rapid Oscillations in the Solar Atmosphere (ROSA) instruments at the Dunn Solar
Telescope, National Solar Observatory, New Mexico with co-aligned Atmospheric
Imaging Assembly (SDO/AIA) and Solar Optical Telescope (Hinode/SOT) data to
observe small-scale events situated within an active region. These data are
then compared with state-of-the-art numerical simulations of the lower
atmosphere made using the MURaM code. It is found that brightenings, in both
the observations and the simulations, of the wings of the H alpha line profile,
interpreted as EBs, are often spatially correlated with increases in the
intensity of the FeI 6302.5A line core. Bi-polar regions inferred from
Hinode/SOT magnetic field data show evidence of flux cancellation associated,
co-spatially, with these EBs, suggesting magnetic reconnection could be a
driver of these high-energy events. Through the analysis of similar events in
the simulated lower atmosphere, we are able to infer that line profiles
analogous to the observations occur co-spatially with regions of strong
opposite polarity magnetic flux. These observed events and their simulated
counterparts are interpreted as evidence of photospheric magnetic reconnection
at scales observable using current observational instrumentation.
