Various Features of the X-class White-light Flares in Super Active Region NOAA 13664
Abstract Super active region NOAA 13664 produced 12 X-class flares (including the largest one so far, an occulted X8.7 flare, in solar cycle 25) during 2024 May 8–15, and 11 of them are identified as white-light flares. Here we present various features of these X-class white-light flares observed by the White-light Solar Telescope (WST) on board the Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory and the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory. It is found that both the white-light emissions at WST 3600 Å (Balmer continuum) and HMI 6173 Å (Paschen continuum) show up in different regions of the sunspot group in these flares, including outside the sunspots and within the penumbra and umbra of the sunspots. They exhibit a point-, ribbon-, loop-, or ejecta-like shape, which can come from flare ribbons (or footpoints), flare loops, and plasma ejecta depending on the perspective view. The white-light duration and relative enhancement are measured and both parameters for 3600 Å emission have greater values than those for 6173 Å emission. It is also found that these white-light emissions are cospatial well with the hard X-ray (HXR) sources in the on-disk flares but have some offsets with the HXR emissions in the off-limb flares. In addition, it is interesting that the 3600 and 6173 Å emissions show different correlations with the peak HXR fluxes, with the former one more sensitive to the HXR emission. All these greatly help us understand the white-light flares of a large magnitude from a super active region on the Sun and also provide important insights into superflares on Sun-like stars.
Authors
- Song De-chao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0057-6766)
- Xiaofeng Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3657-3172)
- Qiao Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7540-9335)
- M. D. Ding (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4978-4972)
- Ying Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8258-4892)
- Wei Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5279-3266)
- Zhichen Jing (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8401-9301)
- Yang Su (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4241-9921)
- Li Feng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4655-6939)
- Hui Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1078-3021)
- Weiqun Gan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2673-4080)
Institutions
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Purple Mountain Observatory (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Nanjing University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Astrophysical Journal Letters
- Published
- 2024-08-21
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ad6d6c
- Citations
- 12
- Primary Topic
- Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.98
Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Chinese Academy of Sciences