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A Test to Confirm the Source of Energy for Solar Flares

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2013

M. S. Wheatland
M. S. Wheatland*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
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Abstract

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A test of the hypothesis that flares derive their energy from large scale current systems inferred from active region vector magnetograms is proposed. The test involves a statistical comparison of the flarerelated change in coronal magnetic energy (based on the magnetohydrodynamic virial theorem) and an independent measure of the energy of the flare. A simulation suggests that — assuming the hypothesis is correct—the test requires around 50 flares with energy greater than 5×1023 J to return a significant result. Existing archives of vector magnetograms should provide sufficient data for such a study.

Keywords

Sun: flares
Type
Research Article
Information
Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , 2001 , pp. 351 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 2001

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