Electric Current Neutralization in Solar Active Regions and its Relation to Magnetic Shear and Eruptive Activity

Active regions (ARs) harbor strong magnetic fields and often host sunspots. They are a major source of the eruptive activity that drives space weather events, including solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). The driving processes of these eruptions - magnetic energy stored in AR electric currents - are well established. However, the conditions that determine whether an AR will produce an eruption are not well understood. Previous work suggests that the degree to which the driving electric currents, or the sum of all currents within a single magnetic polarity, are neutralized may serve as a good proxy for predicting solar eruptions. Here, we extend that work to include a larger sample of 30 ARs to determine the correlation between current neutralization and flare/CME production. We additionally test its relation to the degree of shear along polarity inversion lines (PILs) in an AR to assess the dependence of current neutralization on other AR parameters. We finally conduct a comprehensive error analysis in order to constrain both the statistical and systematic uncertainty in all our measurements. By investigating current neutralization and its relationship to PIL shear and eruptive activity , we can provide further constraints on whether these parameters can improve our ability to predict solar eruptions.