First Flare-related Rapid Change of Photospheric Magnetic Field Observed by Solar Dynamics Observatory

TL;DR

This study presents the first clear evidence of rapid, permanent enhancement of the transverse photospheric magnetic field near the polarity inversion line during a major solar flare, using high-resolution data from SDO/HMI.

Contribution

It provides the first solid observational evidence linking flare occurrence to a significant increase in transverse magnetic field at the PIL, confirming previous hypotheses.

Findings

Transverse magnetic field increased by 70% at the PIL during the flare.

The enhancement was located between the two chromospheric flare ribbons.

Similar magnetic field changes observed in two other major flare events.

Abstract

Photospheric magnetic field not only plays important roles in building up free energy and triggering solar eruptions, but also has been observed to change rapidly and permanently responding to the coronal magnetic field restructuring due to coronal transients. The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager instrument (HMI) on board the newly launched Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) produces seeing-free full-disk vector magnetograms at consistently high resolution and high cadence, which finally makes possible an unambiguous and comprehensive study of this important back-reaction process. In this study, we present a near disk-center, GOES-class X2.2 flare occurred at NOAA AR 11158 on 2011 February 15 using the magnetic field measurements made by HMI. We obtained the first solid evidence of an enhancement in the transverse magnetic field at the flaring magnetic polarity inversion line (PIL) by a magnitude of 70%. This rapid and irreversible field evolution is unequivocally associated with the flare occurrence, with the enhancement area located in between the two chromospheric flare ribbons. Similar findings have been made for another two major flare events observed by SDO. These results strongly corroborate our previous suggestion that the photospheric magnetic field near the PIL must become more horizontal after eruptions. In-depth studies will follow to further link the photospheric magnetic field changes with the dynamics of coronal mass ejections, when full Stokes inversion is carried out to generate accurate magnetic field vectors.