Statistical Study of Confined Filament/Prominence Eruptions during Solar Cycle 23

Abstract

Filament/prominence eruptions can have a significant impact on Earth's upper atmosphere and space environment, and are the primary drivers of what is now called space weather. To distinguish the different types of filament eruptions we statistically examine them during the 23rd Solar cycle. In this study we use 159 filament eruptions using the List of interplanetary (IP) Shocks Observed during Solar Cycle 23 (May 1996 – January 2008) and their Source Information Environmental Satellites (GOES) X-ray plots (see Gopalswamy et al. [Gopalswamy N., H. Xie, P. Mäkelä, S. Akiyama, S. Yashiro et al. (2010) Interplanetary shocks lacking type II radio bursts, Astrophys. J., 710, 1111–1126]). It is found that 69% of the filament eruptions are confined eruptions, while 31% are ejective eruptions. Confined eruptions are 110 and 34 events (21%). They are due to active filaments and 76 events (48%) are due to disappearing filaments. The occurrences of active and disappearing filaments during the increasing phase of solar cycle 23 is found to be 80% while in the decreasing phase they are 13%. We have found that the dominant X-ray flare energy of confined eruptions is that of C class. The most common filaments field extent is located between 5 and 15 degrees. The most common flare duration is between 16 and 40 minutes.