What Determines the Intensity of Solar Flare/CME Events?

Details What Determines the Intensity of Solar Flare/CME Events? What Determines the Intensity of Solar Flare/CME Events?

Aug 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007apj...665.1448s&link_type=abstract

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 665, Issue 2, pp. 1448-1459.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

11

Sun: Corona, Sun: Coronal Mass Ejections (Cmes), Sun: Flares, Sun: Magnetic Fields, Sun: Photosphere

Scientific paper

We present a comprehensive statistical study addressing the question of what determines the intensity of a solar flare and associated coronal mass ejection (CME). For a sample of 18 two-ribbon flares associated with CMEs, we have examined the correlations between the GOES soft X-ray peak flare flux (PFF), the CME speed (VCME) obtained from SOHO LASCO observations, and six magnetic parameters of the flaring active region. These six parameters measured from both TRACE and SOHO MDI observations are: the average background magnetic field strength (B), the area of the region where B is counted (S), the magnetic flux of this region (Φ), the initial shear angle (θ1, measured at the flare onset), the final shear angle (θ2, measured at the time when the shear change stops), and the change of shear angle (θ12=θ1-θ2) of the footpoints. We have found no correlation between θ1 and the intensity of flare/CME events, while the other five parameters are either positively or negatively correlated with both log10(PFF) and VCME. Among these five parameters, Φ and θ12 show the most significant correlations with log10(PFF) and VCME. The fact that both log10(PFF) and VCME are highly correlated with θ12 rather than with θ1 indicates that the intensity of flare/CME events may depend on the released magnetic free energy rather than the total free energy stored prior to the flare. We have also found that a linear combination of a subset of these six parameters shows a much better correlation with the intensity of flare/CME events than each parameter itself, and the combination of log10Φ, θ1, and θ12 is the top-ranked combination.

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