The aim of the project was to develop software on a IDL
platform to study solar active regions. It has already been statically
shown (Canfield
et al.) that the presence of sigmoids on the sun's corona greatly increases
the probability of eruptions. This technique to predict solar eruptions
is based on the visual recognition of these sigmoids.
It was the purpose of this project to apply more 'physics' to the science of predicting solar eruptions. One of the primary aims was to calculate total current in an active region and to hopefully observe some quantitative relationship between total current and frequency of eruption of these regions.
The program written 'FIND_JZ_V2.pro', analysis's photo spherical vector
magnetograms from the Haleakala Stokes polarimeter. For more information
on the Stokes polarimeter with it high resolution echelle spectrometer
coupled to the telescope by optical fibers and how the magnetograms are
actually formed see 'The
Haleakala Stokes Polarimeter' by D.L. Mickey. These magnetograms
are stored in 20 image arrays with a Flexible Image Transport System (FITS)
header.