Nonneutralized Electric Currents as a Proxy for Eruptive Activity in Solar Active Regions

Abstract

Abstract It has been suggested that the ratio of photospheric direct to return current, ∣DC/RC∣, may be a better proxy for assessing the ability of solar active regions to produce a coronal mass ejection (CME) than others such as the amount of shear along the polarity inversion line (PIL). To test this conjecture, we measure both quantities prior to eruptive and confined flares of varying magnitude. We find that eruptive-flare source regions have ∣DC/RC∣ > 1.63 and PIL shear above 45° (average values of 3.2 and 68°, respectively), tending to be larger for stronger events, while both quantities are on average smaller for confined-flare source regions (2.2 and 46°, respectively), albeit with substantial overlap. Many source regions, especially those of eruptive X-class flares, exhibit elongated direct currents (EDCs) bracketing the eruptive PIL segment, which typically coincide with areas of continuous PIL shear above 45°. However, a small subset of confined-flare source regions have ∣DC/RC∣ close to unity, very low PIL shear (<38°), and no clear EDC signatures, rendering such regions less likely to produce a CME. A simple quantitative analysis reveals that ∣DC/RC∣ and PIL shear are almost equally good proxies for assessing CME-productivity, comparable to other proxies suggested in the literature. We also show that an inadequate selection of the current-integration area typically yields a substantial underestimation of ∣DC/RC∣, discuss specific cases that require careful consideration for ∣DC/RC∣ calculation and interpretation of the results, and suggest improving photospheric CME-productivity proxies by incorporating coronal measures such as the decay index.