Comparison between Hinode/SOT and SDO/HMI, AIA data for the study of the solar flare trigger process

Abstract

Abstract Understanding the mechanism that produces solar flares is important not only from the scientific point of view but also for improving space weather predictability. There are numerous observational and computational studies that have attempted to reveal the onset mechanism of solar flares. However, the underlying mechanism of flare onset remains elusive. To elucidate the flare trigger mechanism, we analyzed several flare events which were observed by Hinode/Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) in our previous study. Because of the limitation of the SOT field of view, however, only four events in the Hinode data sets have been usable. Therefore, increasing the number of events is required for evaluating the flare trigger models. We investigated the applicability of data obtained by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to increase the data sample for a statistical analysis of the flare trigger process. SDO regularly observes the full disk of the sun and all flares, although its spatial resolution is lower than that of Hinode. We investigated the M6.6 flare which occurred on 2011 February 13, and compared the analyzed data of SDO with the results of our previous study using Hinode/SOT data. Filter and vector magnetograms obtained by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager and filtergrams from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) 1600 Å were employed. From the comparison of small-scale magnetic configurations and chromospheric emission prior to the flare onset, we confirmed that the trigger region is detectable with the SDO data. We also measured the magnetic shear angles of the active region and the azimuth and strength of the flare trigger field. The results were consistent with our previous study. We concluded that statistical studies of the flare trigger process are feasible with SDO as well as Hinode data. We also investigated the temporal evolution of the magnetic field before the flare onset with SDO.