The Principal Investigator's (PI's) team will assess the relationship between solar subsurface mass flows and the production of flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from solar active regions. To accomplish this, the team will utilize local helioseismology techniques to probe the mass flows beneath magnetic fields observed at the surface of the Sun which may be associated with eruptive events. The PI's team will determine differences in the subsurface flows between active regions associated with eruptive flares and quiescent active regions, validate the reliability of the subsurface flows that they detect, link subsurface flows and flare productivity through comparisons of observed flows with those predicted by models, and independently assess and potentially improve subsurface kinetic-helicity-based flare forecasting indices recently proposed by other researchers.
This team's theoretical predictions will lead to improved physical understanding of the relationship between subsurface flows, as well as and the magnetic properties of CME-eruptive and flare-eruptive solar active regions. The broader impacts of this work will come from making solar flare and CME forecasting more accurate, thereby directly benefitting society. This study could lead to the ability to accurately predict the occurrence of flares and CMEs with up to several days warning.
