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Magnetic polarity inversion lines (PILs) detected in solar active regions have long been recognized as arguably the most essential feature for triggering the instabilities such as flares and eruptive events (i.e., eruptive flares and coronal mass ejections). In recent years, efforts have been focused on using features engineered from PILs for solar eruption prediction. However, PIL rasters and metadata are often generated as byproducts and are not accessible for public use, which limits their utilization in data-intensive space weather analytics applications. We introduce a large-scale publicly available PIL dataset covering practically the entire solar cycle 24 for applying to various space weather forecasting and analytics tasks. The dataset is created using line-of-sight (LoS) magnetograms from the Solar Dynamics Observatory's (SDO) Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) Active Region Patches (HARPs) that involves 4,090 HARP series ranging from May 2010 to March 2019. This dataset includes three PIL-related binary masks of rasters: the actual PILs as per the spatial analysis of the magnetograms, the region of polarity inversion (RoPI), and the convex hull of PILs (convex closure of the set of detected PILs), along with time series structured metadata extracted from these masks.
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A Multimodal Dataset of SDO/HMI Magnetic Polarity Inversions for Solar Flare Forecasting
Magnetic polarity inversion lines (PILs) in solar active regions are key to triggering flares and eruptions. Recently, engineered PIL features have been used for predicting solar eruptions. Derived from the original PIL dataset, using line-of-sight (LoS) magnetograms provided by the Solar Dynamics Observatory's (SDO) Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) Active Region Patches (HARPs), we provide a publicly available comprehensive dataset in a supervised format, where each instance includes a raster of Polarity Inversion Lines (PILs), one of the polarity convex hull, and a multivariate time-series of properties related to PILs. Using SDO-GOES integrated flares historical data covering May 2010 to January 2019, we have assigned each of the instances their corresponding class of flare, FQ, C, M or X. By integrating these diverse data modalities, our approach aims to improve the accuracy of solar flare predictions. Initial findings suggest that the multimodal approach can uncover new patterns and relationships, potentially leading to breakthroughs in predictive accuracy and more effective mitigation strategies against the impacts of solar activities.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2104004
- PAR ID:
- 10526395
- Publisher / Repository:
- Harvard Dataverse
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract Magnetic polarity inversion lines (PILs) detected in solar active regions have long been recognized as arguably the most essential feature for triggering instabilities such as flares and eruptive events (i.e., eruptive flares and coronal mass ejections). In recent years, efforts have been focused on using features engineered from PILs for solar eruption prediction. However, PIL rasters and metadata are often generated as by-products and are not accessible for public use, which limits their utilization in data-intensive space weather analytics applications. We introduce a large-scale publicly available PIL data set covering practically the entire solar cycle 24 for applying to various space weather forecasting and analytics tasks. The data set is created using both radial magnetic field (B_r) and line-of-sight (B_LoS) magnetograms from the Solar Dynamics Observatory’s Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager Active Region Patches (HARP) that involve 4090 HARP series ranging from 2010 May to 2019 March. This data set includes three PIL-related binary masks of rasters: the actual PILs as per the spatial analysis of the magnetograms, the region of polarity inversion, and the convex hull of PILs, along with time-series-structured metadata extracted from these masks. We also provide a preliminary exploratory analysis of selected features aiming to correlate time series of feature metadata and eruptive activity originating from active regions. We envision that this comprehensive PIL data set will complement existing data sets used for space weather forecasting and benefit research in related areas, specifically in better understanding the PIL structure, evolution, and role in eruptions.more » « less
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Abstract Violent solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are magnetic phenomena. However, how magnetic fields reconnecting in the flare differ from nonflaring magnetic fields remains unclear owing to the lack of studies of the flare magnetic properties. Here we present a first statistical study of flaring (highlighted by flare ribbons) vector magnetic fields in the photosphere. Our systematic approach allows us to describe the key physical properties of solar flare magnetism, including distributions of magnetic flux, magnetic shear, vertical current, and net current over flaring versus nonflaring parts of the active region (AR), and compare these with flare/CME properties. Our analysis suggests that while flares are guided by the physical properties that scale with AR size, like the total amount of magnetic flux that participates in the reconnection process and the total current (extensive properties), CMEs are guided by mean properties, like the fraction of the AR magnetic flux that participates (intensive property), with little dependence on the amount of shear at the polarity inversion line (PIL) or the net current. We find that the nonneutralized current is proportional to the amount of shear at the PIL, providing direct evidence that net vertical currents are formed as a result of any mechanism that could generate magnetic shear along the PIL. We also find that eruptive events tend to have smaller PIL fluxes and larger magnetic shears than confined events. Our analysis provides a reference for more realistic solar and stellar flare models. The database is available online and can be used for future quantitative studies of flare magnetism.more » « less
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Context.Erupting magnetic flux ropes (MFRs) are believed to play a crucial role in producing solar flares. However, the formation of erupting MFRs in complex coronal magnetic configurations and the role of their subsequent evolution in the flaring events are not fully understood. Aims.We perform a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation of active region NOAA 12241 to understand the formation of a rising magnetic flux rope during the onset of an M6.9 flare on 2014 December 18 around 21:41 UT (SOL2014-12- 18T21:41M6.9), which was followed by the appearance of parallel flare ribbons. Methods.The MHD simulation was initialised with an extrapolated non-force-free magnetic field generated from the photospheric vector magnetogram of the active region taken a few minutes before the flare. Results.The initial magnetic field topology displays a pre-existing sheared arcade enveloping the polarity inversion line. The simulated dynamics exhibit the movement of the oppositely directed legs of the sheared arcade field lines towards each other due to the converging Lorentz force, resulting in the onset of tether-cutting magnetic reconnection that produces an underlying flare arcade and flare ribbons. Concurrently, a magnetic flux rope above the flare arcade develops inside the sheared arcade and shows a rising motion. The flux rope is found to be formed in a torus-unstable region, thereby explaining its eruptive nature. Interestingly, the location and rise of the rope are in good agreement with the corresponding observations seen in extreme-ultraviolet channels of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Furthermore, the foot points of the simulation’s flare arcade match well with the location of the observed parallel ribbons of the flare. Conclusions.The presented simulation supports the development of the MFR by the tether-cutting magnetic reconnection inside the sheared coronal arcade during flare onset. The MFR is then found to extend along the polarity inversion line (PIL) through slip-running reconnection. The MFR’s eruptive nature is ascribed both to its formation in the torus-unstable region and also to the runaway tether-cutting reconnection.more » « less
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Abstract Magnetic field plays an important role in various solar eruption phenomena. The formation and evolution of the characteristic magnetic field topology in solar eruptions are critical problems that will ultimately help us understand the origin of these eruptions in the solar source regions. With the development of advanced techniques and instruments, observations with higher resolutions in different wavelengths and fields of view have provided more quantitative information for finer structures. It is therefore essential to improve the method with which we study the magnetic field topology in the solar source regions by taking advantage of high-resolution observations. In this study, we employ a nonlinear force-free field extrapolation method based on a nonuniform grid setting for an M-class flare eruption event (SOL2015-06-22T17:39) with embedded vector magnetograms from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Goode Solar Telescope (GST). The extrapolation results for which the nonuniform embedded magnetogram for the bottom boundary was employed are obtained by maintaining the native resolutions of the corresponding GST and SDO magnetograms. We compare the field line connectivity with the simultaneous GST/Hαand SDO/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly observations for these fine-scale structures, which are associated with precursor brightenings. Then we perform a topological analysis of the field line connectivity corresponding to fine-scale magnetic field structures based on the extrapolation results. The analysis results indicate that when we combine the high-resolution GST magnetogram with a larger magnetogram from the SDO, the derived magnetic field topology is consistent with a scenario of magnetic reconnection among sheared field lines across the main polarity inversion line during solar flare precursors.more » « less
