On the possibility of using decayless kink oscillations of coronal loops to forecast powerful solar flares and coronal mass ejections

TL;DR

This study investigates whether decayless kink oscillations in solar coronal loops can predict powerful solar flares and CMEs, finding no systematic changes or predictive potential based on current analysis methods.

Contribution

It provides an empirical analysis of decayless kink oscillations before flares, concluding that these oscillations are not effective predictors of major solar eruptive events.

Findings

No systematic changes in oscillations before flares

Decayless oscillations are not promising for flare prediction

Analysis method does not reveal predictive signals

Abstract

This work investigates the decayless kink oscillations of solar coronal loops and examines possible changes in their behaviour in active regions (ARs) before powerful solar flares (M- and X-class) and in the absence of powerful flares. To this end, we analysed 14 ARs with powerful flares and 14 ARs without powerful flares. For each event, images obtained in the 171 \AA and 94 \AA AIA/SDO channels with 12-second cadence for 4 hours before the flare were retrieved and analysed. For ARs without powerful flares, arbitrary time intervals of similar duration were considered for comparison. Since the decayless oscillations have a very low amplitude (1-2 AIA/SDO pixels), we used the Motion Magnification technique to amplify the amplitude of these oscillations. Time-distance maps were constructed from the processed images in the 171 \AA channel, from which oscillatory patterns were extracted 'manually'. Wavelet analysis was performed to check for changes in the oscillation period. No systematic changes were found. No obvious differences in the behaviour of oscillations in ARs with and without powerful flares were detected either. Additional information was obtained on coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from ARs in the vicinity of the time intervals under consideration. Based on the results of the analysis of a small sample of events, we came to the preliminary conclusion that the registration and analysis of decayless kink oscillations of high (~ 100-600 Mm) coronal loops based on this methodology is not promising for predicting powerful flares and CMEs.