The "Main Sequence" of Explosive Solar Active Regions: Discovery and Interpretation

Details The "Main Sequence" of Explosive Solar Active Regions: Discovery and Interpretation The "Main Sequence" of Explosive Solar Active Regions: Discovery and Interpretation

Aug 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009apj...700l.166f&link_type=abstract

The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 700, Issue 2, pp. L166-L169 (2009).

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

9

Sun: Coronal Mass Ejections: Cmes, Sun: Flares, Sun: Magnetic Fields

Scientific paper

We examine the location and distribution of the production of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and major flares by sunspot active regions in the phase space of two whole-active-region magnetic quantities measured from 1897 SOHO/MDI magnetograms. These magnetograms track the evolution of 44 active regions across the central disk of radius 0.5 R Sun. The two quantities are LWLSG, a gauge of the total free energy in an active region's magnetic field, and LΦ, a measure of the active region's total magnetic flux. From these data and each active region's history of production of CMEs, X flares, and M flares, we find (1) that CME/flare-productive active regions are concentrated in a straight-line "main sequence" in (log LWLSG, log LΦ) space, (2) that main-sequence active regions have nearly their maximum attainable free magnetic energy, and (3) evidence that this arrangement plausibly results from equilibrium between input of free energy to an explosive active region's magnetic field in the chromosphere and corona by contortion of the field via convection in and below the photosphere and loss of free energy via CMEs, flares, and coronal heating, an equilibrium between energy gain and loss that is analogous to that of the main sequence of hydrogen-burning stars in (mass, luminosity) space.

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