Statistical analysis of solar EUV and X-ray flux enhancements induced by solar flares and its implication to upper atmosphere

Abstract

The 0.1-0.8 nm X-ray flux data and 26-34 nm EUV flux data are used to statistically analyze the relationship between enhancement in X-ray flux and that in EUV flux during solar flares in 1996-2006. The EUV enhancement does not linearly increase with X-ray flux from C-class to X-class flares. Its uprising amplitude decreases with X-ray flux. The correlation coefficients between enhancements in EUV and X-ray flux for X, M and C-class flares are only 0.66, 0.58 and 0.54, respectively, which suggests that X-ray flux is not a good index for EUV flux during solar flares. Thus, for studying more accurately solar flare effect on the ionosphere/thermosphere system, one needs to use directly EUV flux measurements. One of important reasons for depressing relationship between X-ray and EUV is that the central meridian distance (CMD) of flare location can significantly affect EUV flux variation particularly for X-class flares: the larger value of CMD results in the smaller EUV enhancement. However, there are much smaller CMD effects on EUV enhancement for M and C-class flares. The solar disc images from SOHO/EIT are utilized to estimate the percentage contribution to total EUV enhancement from the flare region and from other region. The results show the larger percentage contribution from other region for the weaker flares, which would reduce the loss of EUV radiation due to limb location of flare and then weaken the CMD effect for weaker flares like M and C-class. Copyright 2011 by the American Geophysical Union.