Data Set of Flare-Ribbon Reconnected Magnetic Fluxes: A Critical Tool for Understanding Solar Flares and Eruptions

Abstract:

Flare ribbons are emission structures that are frequently observed during flares in transition-region and chromospheric radiation. These typically straddle a polarity inversion line (PIL) of the radial magnetic field at the photosphere, and move apart as the flare progresses. The ribbon flux - the amount of unsigned photospheric magnetic flux swept out by flare ribbons - is thought to be related to the amount coronal magnetic reconnection, and hence provides a key diagnostic tool for understanding the physical processes at work in flares and CMEs. Previous measurements of the magnetic flux swept out by flare ribbons required time-consuming co-alignment between magnetograph and intensity data from different instruments, explaining why those studies only analyzed, at most, a few events. The launch of the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), both aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), presented a rare opportunity to compile a much larger sample of flare-ribbon events than could readily be assembled before. We created a dataset of 141 events of both flare ribbon positions and fluxes, as a function of time, for all C9.-class and greater flares within 45 degrees of disk center observed by SDO from January 2013 till April 2015. For this purpose, we used vector magnetograms (2D magnetic field maps) from HMI and UV images from AIA. A critical problem with using unprocessed AIA data is the existence of spurious intensities in AIA data associated with strong flare emission, most notably "blooming" (spurious smearing of saturated signal into neighboring pixels, often in streaks). To overcome this difficulty, we have developed an algorithmic procedure that effectively excludes artifacts like blooming. We present our database and compare statistical properties of flare ribbons, e.g. evolutions of ribbon reconnection fluxes and reconnection flux rates, with the properties from theoretical models.