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A New Sigmoid Catalog from Hinode and the Solar Dynamics Observatory: Statistical Properties and Evolutionary Histories

  • Solar Cycle 24 as seen by SDO
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Abstract

We present a new sigmoid catalog covering the duration of the Hinode mission and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) until the end of 2012. The catalog consists of 72 mostly long-lasting sigmoids. We collect and make available all X-ray and EUV data from Hinode, SDO, and the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO), and we determine the sigmoid lifetimes, sizes, and aspect ratios. We also collect the line-of-sight magnetograms from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) for SDO or the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) to measure flux versus time for the lifetime of each region. We determine that the development of a sigmoidal shape and eruptive activity is more strongly correlated with flux cancelation than with emergence. We find that the eruptive properties of the regions correlate well with the maximum flux, largest change, and net change in flux in the regions. These results have implications for constraining future flux-rope models of ARs and gaining insight into their evolutionary properties.

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Acknowledgements

Support for this work was provided by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) via funding from Hinode/XRT through grant NNM07AB07C and SDO/AIA through grant SP02H1701R. AS is supported by a NASA Jack Eddy postdoctoral fellowship. EH is supported by the NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) grant ATM-0851866 to SAO. We thank D. Mackay and K. Meyer for providing us with a magnetogram noise-reduction method.

Hinode is a Japanese mission developed and launched by ISAS/JAXA, with NAOJ as domestic partner and NASA and STFC (UK) as international partners. It is operated by these agencies in cooperation with ESA and the NSC (Norway). SDO is a NASA satellite, and the AIA instrument team is led by Lockheed Martin, with SAO as the major subcontractor. The SDO data used here are provided courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA and HMI science teams. The STEREO/SECCHI data used here were produced by an international consortium of the Naval Research Laboratory (USA), Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Lab (USA), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (USA), Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (UK), University of Birmingham (UK), Max-Planck-Institut for Solar System Research (Germany), Centre Spatiale de Liège (Belgium), Institut d’Optique Théorique et Appliquée (France), and Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (France). The USA institutions were funded by NASA, the UK institutions by the Science & Technology Facility Council (which used to be the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, PPARC), the German institutions by Deutsches Zentrum für Luftund Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), the Belgian institutions by Belgian Science Policy Office, and the French institutions by Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). The NRL effort was also supported by the USAF Space Test Program and the Office of Naval Research. This articles uses data from the CACTus CME catalog, generated and maintained by the SIDC at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, and Hα images from the Kanzelhöhe Solar Observatory, operated by the Institute for Geophysics, Astrophysics, and Meteorology (IGAM) of the University of Graz (Austria), and the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) program, managed by the National Solar Observatory, which is operated by AURA, Inc. under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The data were acquired by instruments operated by the Big Bear Solar Observatory, High Altitude Observatory, Learmonth Solar Observatory, Udaipur Solar Observatory, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, and Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

    A. S. Savcheva, S. C. McKillop, P. I. McCauley & E. E. DeLuca

  2. Department of Physics, University of California, 366 LeConte Hall #7300, Berkeley, CA, 94720-7300, USA

    E. M. Hanson

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  1. A. S. Savcheva
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  2. S. C. McKillop
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  3. P. I. McCauley
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  4. E. M. Hanson
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  5. E. E. DeLuca
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Correspondence to A. S. Savcheva.

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The Many Scales of Solar Activity in Solar Cycle 24 as seen by SDO

Guest Editors: Aaron Birch, Mark Cheung, Andrew Jones, and W. Dean Pesnell

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Savcheva, A.S., McKillop, S.C., McCauley, P.I. et al. A New Sigmoid Catalog from Hinode and the Solar Dynamics Observatory: Statistical Properties and Evolutionary Histories. Sol Phys 289, 3297–3311 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-013-0469-3

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