Periodicity in the most violent solar eruptions: recent observations of coronal mass ejections and flares revisited

Abstract

Using the Hilbert-Huang Transform method, we investigate the periodicity in the monthly occurrence numbers and monthly mean energy of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) observed by the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment on board the Solar and Heliographic Observatory from 1999 March to 2009 December. We also investigate the periodicity in the monthly occurrence numbers of Hα flares and monthly mean flare indices from 1996 January to 2008 December. The results show the following. (1) The period of 5.66 yr is found to be statistically significant in the monthly occurrence numbers of CMEs; the period of 10.5 yr is found to be statistically significant in the monthly mean energy of CMEs. (2) The periods of 3.05 and 8.70yr are found to be statistically significant in the monthly occurrence numbers of Hα flares; the period of 9.14yr is found to be statistically significant in the monthly mean flare indices.