Distinguishing Eruptive from Non-Eruptive Solar Active Regions Manolis K. Georgoulis JHU/APL Johns Hopkins Rd., Laurel, MD Durham, NH, 06/27/06 Partially supported by LWS TR&T

Results for the entire solar cycle 23 / SoHO MDI LaBonte et al. (2006) X-flaring ARs |(dH m / dt)| > 6 x Mx 2 s -1 X-flaring ARs appear to to have a lower threshold in their peak helicity rates Durham, 06/27/06 08/13

The energy equation in solar active regions Durham, 06/27/06 09/13 X-flaring ARs M-flaring ARs ARs with major eruptions are among the “largest” on the solar disk where

Helicity injection rate in solar active regions Durham, 06/27/06 07/13 The Poynting theorem for magnetic helicity in an open volume (Berger & Field 1984): Using the inferred LCT velocity the helicity injection rate becomes (Demoulin & Berger 2003) Using the improved estimation of the helicity flux density of Pariat et al. (2005) Although the use of the LCT velocity induces a number of problems, sufficient statistics may alleviate some of these problems