On the relation between filament eruptions, flares, and coronal mass ejections

We present a statistical study of 106 filament eruptions, which were automatically detected by a pattern recognition program implemented at Big Bear Solar Observatory using Hα full-disk data from 1999 to 2003. We compare these events with Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite soft X-ray time profiles, solar-geophysical data (SGD) solar event reports, Michelson Doppler Imager magnetograms, and Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) data to determine the relationship between filament eruptions and other phenomena of solar activity. (1) Excluding eight events with no corresponding LASCO data, 55% or 56% of 98 events were associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs). (2) Active region filament eruptions have a considerably higher flare association rate of 95% compared to quiescent filament eruptions with 27%, but a comparable CME association rate, namely, 43% for active region filament eruptions and 54% for quiescent filament eruptions. (3) 54% or 68% of 80 disk events were associated with new flux emergence. In addition, we derived the sign of magnetic helicity and the orientation of the magnetic field associated with seven halo CMEs and demonstrated that the geoeffectiveness of a halo CME can be predicted by these two parameters.