Electric-current Neutralization and Eruptive Activity of Solar Active Regions
- 1Predictive Science Inc., San Diego, CA, USA
- 2W. W. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
- 3NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
- 4ATRC, University of Hawai‘i, Pukalani, HI, USA
The physical conditions that determine the eruptive activity of solar active regions (ARs) are still not well understood. Various proxies for predicting eruptive activity have been suggested, with relatively limited success. Moreover, it is presently unclear under which conditions an eruption will remain confined to the low corona or produce a coronal mass ejection (CME).
Using vector magnetogram data from SDO/HMI, we investigate the association between electric-current neutralization and eruptive activity for a sample of ARs. We find that the vast majority of CME-producing ARs are characterized by a strongly non-neutralized total current, while the total current in ARs that do not produce CMEs is almost perfectly neutralized, even if those ARs produce strong (X-class) confined flares. This suggests that the degree of current neutralization can serve as a good proxy for assessing the ability of ARs to produce CMEs.
How to cite: Torok, T., Liu, Y., Leake, J. E., Sun, X., and Titov, V. S.: Electric-current Neutralization and Eruptive Activity of Solar Active Regions, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-1654, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-1654, 2019
