Scaling Relations in Coronal Mass Ejections and Energetic Proton Events associated with Solar Superflares

TL;DR

This study investigates the relationships between CME speed, energetic proton flux, and flare energy during major solar events, deriving scaling laws to estimate the potential impact of solar superflares on space weather.

Contribution

It introduces new scaling relations linking CME properties and energetic proton flux to flare energy, providing a framework to assess superflare impacts.

Findings

Established empirical scaling relations among CME speed, proton flux, and flare flux.

Derived theoretical scaling laws connecting CME mass, speed, and proton flux to flare energy.

Estimated upper limits of CME speed and proton flux for hypothetical solar superflares.

Abstract

In order to discuss the potential impact of solar 'superflares' on space weather, we investigated statistical relations among energetic proton peak flux with energy higher than $ 10 \rm MeV$ ($F_p$), CME speed near the Sun ($V_{CME}$) obtained by {\it SOHO}/LASCO coronagraph and flare soft X-ray peak flux in 1-8\AA band ($F_{SXR}$) during 110 major solar proton events (SPEs) recorded from 1996 to 2014. The linear regression fit results in the scaling relations $V_{CME} \propto F_{SXR}^\alpha$, $F_p\propto F_{SXR}^\beta$ and $F_p\propto V_{CME}^\gamma$ with $\alpha = 0.30\pm 0.04$, $\beta = 1.19 \pm 0.08$ and $\gamma = 4.35 \pm 0.50$, respectively. On the basis of simple physical assumptions, on the other hand, we derive scaling relations expressing CME mass ($M_{CME}$), CME speed and energetic proton flux in terms of total flare energy ($E_{flare}$) as, $M_{CME}\propto E_{flare}^{2/3}$, $V_{CME}\propto E_{flare}^{1/6}$ and $F_{p}\propto E_{flare}^{5/6}\propto V_{CME}^5$, respectively. We then combine the derived scaling relations with observation, and estimated the upper limit of $V_{CME}$ and $F_p$ to be associated with possible solar superflares.