Speaker
Alan Title
(Stanford Lockheed Institute)
Description
In this study we tested for groups of flares (flare
clusters) in which successive flares occur within a fixed
time - the linking window. The data set used is the flare
waiting times provided by the X-ray flare detectors on the
Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES).
The study was limited to flares of magnitude C5 and greater
obtained during cycle 23. While many flares in a cluster may
come from the same active region, the larger clusters often
have origins in multiple regions. The longest cluster of the
last cycle lasted more than 42 days with an average time
separation between successive flares of 5 hours, where no
two flares were separated by more than 36 hours. The flare
rate in clusters is 4 to 6 time greater than the rate in
solar maximum outside of flares. The are indications that
flare clustering is associated with periods of multiple
sunspot nests.
