SHARPs - A New Space Weather Data Product from SDO/HMI

A new data product from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) called Space-weather HMI Active Region Patches (SHARPs) is now available. We perform a statistical analysis of SHARPs for all of the solar active regions measured since the launch of SDO. SHARPs are created as follows: The HMI pipeline analysis code automatically detects active regions in photospheric line-of-sight magnetograms and photograms. This code identifies a patch on the full-disk imagery that encompasses each active region, and then tracks every active region as it crosses the face of the solar disk. The vector magnetic field is determined for each patch and is available as a time series of FITS files. Over 30 space weather quantities are calculated per patch, including the Gradient-Weighted Neutral Line Length (Mason and Hoeksema, 2010), current helicity (Leka and Barnes 2003, I and II), and neutral-line length (Falconer et al., 2008). Data series and plots of quantities are available in near real time, i.e., with no more than an hour lag, with a 12-minute cadence.