Block-induced complex structures building the flare-productive solar active region 12673

TL;DR

This study investigates how complex magnetic structures induced by sunspot blocking led to the highly flare-productive active region 12673, culminating in the largest flare of the last decade, the X9.3 event.

Contribution

It introduces a novel block-induced eruption model explaining the formation of complex structures and flare triggering in active region 12673.

Findings

Complex magnetic structures formed by bipolar regions caused flare activity.

The X9.3 flare was triggered by an erupting filament due to kink instability.

A new block-induced eruption model is proposed for the first time.

Abstract

Solar active region (AR) 12673 produced 4 X-class, 27 M-class, and numerous lower class flares during its passage across the visible solar disk in September 2017. Our study is to answer the questions why this AR was so flare-productive and how the X9.3 flare, the largest one of the last decade, took place. We find that there was a sunspot in the initial several days, and then two bipolar regions emerged nearby it successively. Due to the standing of the pre-existing sunspot, the movement of the bipoles was blocked, while the pre-existing sunspot maintained its quasi-circular shaped umbra only with the disappearance of a part of penumbra. Thus, the bipolar patches were significantly distorted, and the opposite polarities formed two semi-circular shaped structures. After that, two sequences of new bipolar regions emerged within the narrow semi-circular zone, and the bipolar patches separated along the curved channel. The new bipoles sheared and interacted with the previous ones, forming a complex topological system, during which numerous flares occurred. At the highly sheared region, a great deal of free energy was accumulated. On September 6, one negative patch near the polarity inversion line began to rapidly rotate and shear with the surrounding positive fields, and consequently the X9.3 flare erupted. Our results reveal that the block-induced complex structures built the flare-productive AR and the X9.3 flare was triggered by an erupting filament due to the kink instability. To better illustrate this process, a block-induced eruption model is proposed for the first time.