Connection between Active region complexity and Solar Flare strength
Abstract
Hale (1908) discovered the existence of magnetic fields in sunspots, and since then a consensus has been reached that magnetic fields play an important role in various forms of solar activities, such as solar flares . Modified Mount-Wilson scheme is one of the methodology to classify active regions based on their complexity . As per this scheme, sunspots are classified as α, β, γ, and δ with the complexity of the magnetic topology increasing from α to δ. The δ sunspots are known to be highly flare-productive. An existing automated algorithm (SMART-DF) is modified and used to identify δ-spots for the existing full disk SOHO/MDI data. The automatically identified δ-spots is compared with the NOAA-SRS database and found to be reproducing almost all the identified δ-spots. In thisstudy, the connection between formation of δ-spot and flares is also carried out using GOES flare flux and NOAA-SRS sunspot classification.
- Publication:
-
Long-term Datasets for the Understanding of Solar and Stellar Magnetic Cycles
- Pub Date:
- February 2018
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S1743921318001977
- Bibcode:
- 2018IAUS..340...75A
- Keywords:
-
- sunspots;
- flares