Flare-production potential associated with different sunspot groups

Abstract

In this study, we analysed different types (C, M, and X classes) of X-ray solar flares occurring in sunspot groups. The data cover 1996-2014 time interval, and a total of 4262 active regions (ARs) were included in the data set. We defined the solar-flare-production potential as the ratio of the total number of flares observed in a sunspot group to the total number of the same-class sunspot groups. Our main findings are as follows: (1) large and complex sunspot groups (D+E+F) have the flare-production potential about eight times higher than the small and simple (A+B+C+H) ARs; (2) 79 per cent of all flares were produced by the large and complex sunspot groups, while only 21 per cent of flares were produced by the small groups; (3) the largest and the most complex F-class (very large and very complex) sunspot groups exhibit the highest flare-production potential (2.16 flare per sunspot group), while the smallest and the least complex A class sunspot groups show the lowest (0.05 flare per group) flareproduction potential; (4) temporal variation of sunspot counts, sunspot group areas, and the total number of flares (including C flares) showed similar time profiles during both cycles with multiple peaks; (5) the mean area of ARs very well describes the flare-production potential of each group with the regression coefficient of R2 = 0.99. Most of these sunspot groups (> 70 per cent) are, according to the Zurich Classification, complex ARs.