Solar LImb Prominence CAtcher and Tracker (SLIPCAT): An Automated System and Its Preliminary Statistical Results

TL;DR

This paper introduces SLIPCAT, an automated system for detecting and tracking solar limb prominences from EUV data, providing a large catalog and statistical insights into prominence properties and behaviors.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel automated system for prominence detection and tracking, along with a comprehensive catalog and statistical analysis of solar prominences from 2007 to 2009.

Findings

Most prominences are below 60° latitude and about 26 Mm high.

Some prominences exhibit upward speeds exceeding 100 km/s.

Brightness, area, and height are strongly correlated.

Abstract

In this paper, we present an automated system, which has the capability to catch and track solar limb prominences based on observations from EUV 304 passband. The characteristic parameters and their evolution, including height, position angle, area, length and brightness, are obtained without manual interventions. By applying the system to the STEREO-B/SECCHI/EUVI 304 data during 2007 April -2009 October, we obtain a total of 9477 well-tracked prominences and a catalog of these events available online at http://space.ustc.edu.cn/dreams/slipcat/. A detailed analysis of these prominences suggests that the system has a rather good performance. We have obtained several interesting statistical results based on the catalog. Most prominences appear below the latitude of 60 degrees and at the height of about 26 Mm above the solar surface. Most of them are quite stable during the period they are tracked. Nevertheless, some prominences have an upward speed of more than 100 km/s, and some others show significant downward and/or azimuthal speeds. There are strong correlations among the brightness, area and height. The expansion of a prominence is probably one major cause of its fading during the rising or erupting process.