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# On Black Hole Scalar Hair in Asymptotically Anti de Sitter Spacetimes

## I Introduction

The falsehood of the no-hair conjecture for stationary black holes is hardly even disputed these days as the list of counterexamples becomes ever larger: Einstein-Yang-Mills EYM , Einstein-Skyrme ES , Einstein-Yang-Mills-dilaton EYMd , Einstein-Yang-Mills-Higgs EYMH , and Einstein-non-abelian-Procca EYMH  fields. In some sub-communities the idea seems to be holding out that a modified version that applies only to stable black holes, could remain valid, despite the fact that for some of the examples above some claims of stable non-trivial solutions exist in the literature.

One place where it seemed for a while that there was hope for a restricted form of the conjecture was the scalar field arena. Here we had the original no hair theorems of Bekenstein Bek0  covering the case of minimally coupled scalar fields with convex potentials, other theorems dealing with the case of minimally coupled fields with arbitrary potentials were obtained in Heusler  and EH . The so called Bronnikov-Melnikov-Bocharova-Bekenstein (BMBB) black hole “solution” bekbh  which corresponds to a spherical symmetric extremal black hole with a scalar field conformally coupled to gravity seemed to represent a discrete example of scalar hair, as it was shown XZ  that there are no other static spherically symmetric Black Hole solutions in this theory. Later on, it was shown that this configuration, which presents a divergence of the scalar field at the horizon, cannot be considered as a regular black hole solution because the energy momentum tensor is ill-defined at the horizon sudzann . Finally it has been shown that if one demands that the scalar field be bounded throughout the static region then, there are no solutions at all. Zannias .

For more general cases of non minimal coupling there are results Saa  showing that under the assumption that certain “ conformal factor” doesn’t vanish or blow up, there are no nontrivial black hole solutions. Next, there is a result by Bekmayo  that does not rely on such assumption, and which considers the existence of static , spherically symmetric black hole solutions in theories in which the sign of the non-minimal coupling constant is negative ( the only case not covered by other theorems) case. There it is shown that under certain suppositions about the form of the energy-momentum flux, there are no nontrivial solutions. In Igor  it is argued that these suppositions are not fully justifiable and numerical evidence is given against the existence of such black hole that doesn’t rely on these assumptions.

It is therefore a rather unexpected development that hairy black hole solutions have now been found in both theories with minimal Min  as well as non-minimal Nonmin  coupled scalar fields simply by considering asymptotically anti de-Sitter, rather than asymptotically flat, boundary conditions. Moreover these papers have strong indications that, under certain conditions, the new solutions are stable.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the situation regarding the asymptotically anti de Sitter case, in light of existing results for the asymptotically flat case, discuss the points where the differences are relevant and give a simple explanation of some of the features of the new solutions and point to some surprising conjectures that can be directly infer from this understanding. The method used in this part is a generalization of one that was successfully employed in deriving a general characterization of hairy black holes in a wide range of theories us .

An added reason for interest in the asymptotically Anti-de-Sitter case, and one we briefly touch in this paper is the important place such spacetimes have acquired in view of the AdS/CFT conjecture. In fact we will argue that the results and conjectures that are pointed to in this work, indicate a difficulty for the notion that the ADF/CFT idea can have as general a validity as is normally deem to have.

## II  Scalar Hair and Asymptotic conditions

We will restrict consideration to the minimally coupled case as the emergence of hair doesn’t rely at all on the more complicated non-minimal couplings. Thus we will consider a theory given by the action:

$$S=\sqrt{g}d^4x\left[\frac{1}{16\pi }(R2\mathrm{\Lambda })1/2(\varphi )^2V(\varphi )\right]$$
(1)
where $`\varphi `$ is a scalar field and $`V`$ its potential, $`R`$ is the scalar curvature, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the true cosmological constant ( by which we mean that the minimum of the scalar potential has been set to $`0`$, and any nonzero part has been absorbed into $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$). Now we restrict attention to static spherically symmetric regular black holes whose exterior we parameterize as

$$ds^2=e^{2\delta }\mu dt^2+\mu ^1dr^2+r^2d\mathrm{\Omega }^2,$$
(2)
where $`\mu `$ and $`\delta `$ are functions of $`r`$. Note that $`\delta `$ can be taught of as representing an additional red-shift, beyond the one that could be inferred from the geometry of the static hypersurfaces (i.e. those that are normal to the Killing Field). The condition for a presence of a regular horizon at $`r_H`$ requires the vanishing of $`\mu `$ there. It is customary to parameterize $`\mu `$ as

$$\mu (r)=1\frac{2m(r)}{r}+\lambda r^2$$
(3)
where the asymptotic geometry is controlled by the parameter $`\lambda `$ (i.e $`\lambda =0`$ for the asymptotically flat case, $`\lambda >0`$ for the asymptotically Anti de Sitter case, and $`\lambda <0`$ for the asymptotically de Sitter case). Einstein’s equations give in this case

$$\mu ^{}=8\pi rT_{}^{t}{}_{t}{}^{}+\frac{1\mu }{r},\delta ^{}=\frac{4\pi r}{\mu }(T_{}^{t}{}_{t}{}^{}T_{}^{r}{}_{r}{}^{}),$$
(4)
where prime stands for differentiation with respect to $`r`$. The scalar field equation can be written as;

$$\mu \varphi ^{\prime \prime }+[(1/r)(\mu +1)+4\pi r(T_{}^{t}{}_{t}{}^{}+T_{}^{r}{}_{r}{}^{})]\varphi ^{}\frac{V}{\varphi }=0$$
(5)
We must point out that in the above formulas refer to the “total energy momentum” tensor $`T_{\mu \nu }`$ which is related to the energy momentum of the scalar field $`T_{\mu \nu }(\varphi )`$ as $`T_{\mu \nu }=T_{\mu \nu }(\varphi )g_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Lambda }/(8\pi )`$ .

The main tool of our analysis is simply the conservation for the $`r`$ component of the total energy momentum tensor $`T_{}^{\mu }{}_{r;\mu }{}^{}=0`$, which, through the use of Einstein’s equations can be written as us :

$$e^\delta (e^\delta T_{}^{r}{}_{r}{}^{})^{}=\frac{1}{2\mu r}\left[(T_{}^{t}{}_{t}{}^{}T_{}^{r}{}_{r}{}^{})+\mu (2T3T_{}^{t}{}_{t}{}^{}5T_{}^{r}{}_{r}{}^{})\right],$$
(6)
where $`T`$ stands for the trace of the stress energy tensor.

The energy momentum tensor of the scalar field by itself satisfies then:

$$e^\delta (e^\delta T(\varphi )_{}^{r}{}_{r}{}^{})^{}=\frac{1}{2\mu r}\left[(1+r^2(\mathrm{\Lambda }))(T(\varphi )_{}^{t}{}_{t}{}^{}T(\varphi )_{}^{r}{}_{r}{}^{})+\mu (2T(\varphi )3T(\varphi )_{}^{t}{}_{t}{}^{}5T(\varphi )_{}^{r}{}_{r}{}^{})\right]$$
(7)
Here we can review the reasons behind the fact that there is no nontrivial scalar field in the exterior of such black holes in the asymptotically flat case with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$. First the regularity at the horizon requires that mixed components $`T(\varphi )_\nu ^\mu `$ must be bounded at the horizon since the scalar $`T(\varphi )_\nu ^\mu T(\varphi )_{}^{\nu }{}_{\mu }{}^{}`$ is in this case a sum of non-negative terms. Next we note that the vanishing of $`\mu `$ at the horizon indicates that on the horizon $`T(\varphi )_r^r=T(\varphi )_t^t`$ which is negative definite as follows from the Weak Energy Condition (WEC) which is satisfied in particular by minimally coupled scalar fields ( in fact, in our case we have $`T(\varphi )_r^r=1/2\mu (\varphi ^{})^2V`$ and $`T(\varphi )_t^t=T(\varphi )_\theta ^\theta =T(\varphi )_\phi ^\phi =1/2\mu (\varphi ^{})^2V`$ ). Next, it follows from the WEC that $`(T_{}^{t}{}_{t}{}^{}T_{}^{r}{}_{r}{}^{})<0`$ and from fact that for the situation at hand the combination $`(2T(\varphi )3T(\varphi )_{}^{t}{}_{t}{}^{}5T(\varphi )_{}^{r}{}_{r}{}^{})`$ is $`3\mu (\varphi ^{})^2`$ and thus non-positive, that the left hand side of eq. (7) is non positive, and thus that $`e^\delta T_{}^{r}{}_{r}{}^{}(\varphi )`$ is a decreasing function of $`r`$. It is thus impossible for this function to approach zero as it would be required from asymptotic flatness, the boundary condition that is relevant in this case. The point is that if we consider now asymptotically Anti de Sitter boundary conditions, and a negative cosmological constant two aspects of the above discussion remain unchanged : $`e^\delta T(\varphi )_r^r`$ is negative definite at the horizon, and it is a decreasing function of $`r`$. Thus the reasons behind the possibility of scalar black hole hair in such case is the fact that in the Anti de Sitter case one can allow $`T(\varphi )_r^r`$ to go to a finite (and negative) constant value at infinity which results in an effective cosmological constant which differs from the true cosmological constant of the theory. In fact we can now restate the result of the above analysis for the asymptotically Anti de Sitter case as follows:

Theorem. There are no nontrivial static and spherically symmetric black hole solutions in asymptotically Anti-de-Sitter case in which the asymptotic behavior corresponds to the Anti-de-Sitter spacetime with the true cosmological constant.

In other words, the asymptotically Anti de Sitter region correspond to one where the effective cosmological constant is :

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_{eff}=\mathrm{\Lambda }+8\pi V(\varphi _{\mathrm{}})$$
(8)
This is in fact in essence the difference between the asymptotically flat, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$ case vs. the asymptotically Anti de Sitter, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }0`$ case, i.e. the fact that in the former case we must require $`V`$ to go to $`0`$ at infinity, while in the latter case any nonzero asymptotic value of $`V`$ can be absorbed into the effective cosmological constant. The theorem above in fact ensures that such asymptotic value is in fact nonzero and that such absorption can not be done without. Note that for a nontrivial black hole $`V(\varphi _{\mathrm{}})>V(\varphi _{r_H})0`$, thus $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{eff}>\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and the asymptotic behavior of the spacetime in then less ” Anti de Sitter like” than would have been expected from the actual value of the true cosmological constant.

Moreover, as one is interested in situations in which the scalar field converges to a finite value at infinity we can look at the scalar field equations and note that a necessary condition for such behavior is that the field should go to an extremum of the potential at infinity. Thus our general result, that $`T(\varphi )_r^r`$ must be a decreasing function, together with the fact that in this regime it coincides with $`V`$, suggests that the extremum of $`V`$ must be approached from below at infinity, and thus, that such extremum must be a maxima. In fact, assuming that the scalar field converges to a finite limit $`\varphi _{\mathrm{}}`$ at infinity, and that at this point the potential takes a finite value, and we write the asymptotic solution as $`\varphi =\varphi _{\mathrm{}}+f(r)`$, with $`f0`$ at $`\mathrm{}`$. The asymptotic form of the scalar field equation is

$$\lambda r^2f^{\prime \prime }+4\lambda rf^{}\frac{V}{\varphi }|_\varphi _{\mathrm{}}\frac{^2V}{\varphi ^2}|_\varphi _{\mathrm{}}f=0$$
(9)
From here we see that $`\frac{V}{\varphi }|_\varphi _{\mathrm{}}=0`$. The solution of this equation that goes to zero at infinity is of the form $`f=1/r^\beta `$ with $`\beta >0`$. Substituting in eq. (9) one concludes that

$$\beta =\frac{3}{2}\pm \sqrt{\frac{9}{4}+\frac{1}{\lambda }\frac{^2V}{\varphi ^2}|_\varphi _{\mathrm{}}}.$$
(10)
On the other hand, from the Einstein equations we have that $`m^{}r^4f_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$ so the convergence of $`m`$ requires that $`\mathrm{}(\beta )>3/2`$ and thus the type of oscillating behavior suggested in Min  can not occur.

If $`\frac{^2V}{\varphi ^2}|_\varphi _{\mathrm{}}>0`$ one of the roots in (10) makes $`\varphi `$ divergent, requiring a fine-tunning to avoid this divergence. So, although it is not possible to rule out a solution in this case, we are going to consider the case in which the scalar field goes to a local maximum at infinity, i.e. $`0>\frac{^2V}{\varphi ^2}|_\varphi _{\mathrm{}}>\frac{9}{4}\lambda `$; which are in fact the cases in which solutions have been found.

There are several interesting points that come out of this analysis: First we note that we can chose the cosmological constant to be such that the effective cosmological constant vanishes, leading to scalar field hair for black holes in the asymptotically flat context! ( the price paid for this possibility is the introduction of a fine tuned cosmological constant). The next point concerns the issue of stability. This, as already mentioned has been considered an important hope to salvage something of the no hair conjecture. The point is that in these theories the Schwarzschild -Anti de Sitter black holes are also trivial solutions, and thus, one could hope that if, as indicated by the available evidence (See Min ), the new, nontrivial black hole solutions are stable, there would seem be a clear violation of even the weakened version ( i.e. the version dealing solely with stable black holes) of the no hair conjecture. The first issue that comes to mind is what is the meaning of stability in the asymptotically Anti- de -Sitter context. Normally, what one means by stability in principle, is the following: Given initial data corresponding to the configuration in question, are there small perturbations of these, that grow without bounds with evolution in time?. The point is that, as the Anti de Sitter spacetime is not globally hyperbolic (i.e. has no Cauchy hypersurfaces) there is in principle no well posed initial value formulation that would allow one to investigate such question so there is no possible meaningful answer to it, and thus no meaning to the question. The only way to go around this problem seems to be to fix “boundary conditions at infinity” throughout the time of evolution so as to obtain a well posed initial value problem. Then the issue of stability relates to situations in which we consider small perturbations as in the previous discussion but keep among other things the value of the scalar field fixed at infinity. It is in this regard that the new black hole solutions could possibly be stable. We will assume from here on that such stability is in fact verified for these solutions. Now let us ask ourselves whether such stability is indeed surprising or not. The first thing we note is that, as mentioned before, at infinity the scalar field is sitting at a local maximum of the potential, and thus, that the stability is intimately connected with the fact that we are dealing with a problem of evolution with fixed conditions at infinity, for otherwise our intuition tell us that under perturbations the field would tend to roll down the potential.

What lies behind the stability of the new stable configurations ought to be then, that they represent the configurations of “minimal mass” (See Mass  and references therein for a formal definition of mass in this context and comparison with alternative ones) among those that have a given black hole area111We are assuming a generalization of the ideas presented in Sud-Wald . and fixed value of the scalar field at infinity. Assuming that this is the case, the following conjecture naturally follows: For such situations in which the nontrivial black hole is stable, the trivial solution with similar boundary condition i.e. the standard Schwarzschild Anti-de-Sitter solution with the same boundary conditions (with the scalar field frozen at the top of the potential throughout spacetime) should be unstable. In particular we can consider the situation in which a fine tuning has made the effective cosmological constant equal to zero, and then, the plain old Schwarzschild solution should be unstable. This situation is analogous to the case of the magnetically charged Reisner Nostrom Solution which is stable within Einstein Maxwell Theory, but is unstable within Einstein Yang Mills Theory unstableRN .

Finally, we note that in Min , stable as well as unstable nontrivial solutions were found. What lies behind the difference in these situations?. It is natural to assume it has to do with a change in the sign of the mass difference between the two solutions with the same horizon area and asymptotic value of the scalar field. We note that in the situation at hand such difference can have either sign depending on the details of the scalar potential. In fact let’s compare $`M_2(r_H)`$, the mass of a nontrivial static black hole of radius $`r_H`$ with $`M_1(r_H)`$ the mass of the corresponding Schwarzschild -Anti de Sitter black hole of the same radius (by black hole radius we mean $`r_H=\sqrt{A/4\pi }`$ where $`A`$ is the horizon area. And by mass we mean the Hamiltonian mass as defined in Mass , which in the present situation can be evaluated simply by $`M=lim_r\mathrm{}m(r)`$).

In the latter case the solution is just given by setting $`\varphi \varphi _{\mathrm{}}`$, $`\delta 0`$ and $`\mu (r)=12M_1/r+\lambda r^2`$ with $`M_1`$ the corresponding mass of the black hole of radius $`r_H`$ so

$$M_1(r_H)=\frac{r_H}{2}(1+\lambda r_H^2)$$
(11)
In the case of the nontrivial black hole the mass is obtained from the equation for $`m^{}`$ that follows from eqs. (4) and (3);

$$m^{}=4\pi r^2T_t^t+(3/2)\lambda r^2=(r^2/2)[(3\lambda +\mathrm{\Lambda })+8\pi V(\varphi )+4\pi \mu (\varphi ^{})^2]$$
(12)
First, we note that the requirement that $`m^{}0`$ at $`\mathrm{}`$ implies that

$$\lambda =(1/3)[\mathrm{\Lambda }+8\pi V(\varphi _{\mathrm{}})]=1/3\mathrm{\Lambda }_{eff}.$$
(13)
Next the vanishing of $`\mu `$ at the horizon requires that $`m(r_H)=r_H/2(1+\lambda r_H^2)=M_1(r_H)`$ , so we can write, using eq. (13) the mass of the nontrivial black hole as:

$$M_2=m(r_H)+4\pi _{r_H}^{\mathrm{}}r^2[V(\varphi )V(\varphi _{\mathrm{}})+(1/2)\mu (\varphi ^{})^2]𝑑r$$
(14)
Thus the sign of $`M_2M_1`$ depends on the integral which could have either sign depending on the details of the potential and the horizon radius. Note that this is in contrast with the situation that arises, say, in Einstein Yang Mills Theory and its hairy black holes in the asymptotically flat context, where the mass of the nontrivial black hole is

$$M_2=m(r_H)+4\pi _{r_H}^{\mathrm{}}r^2[(1/r^2)V(w)+(1/2)\mu (w^{})^2]𝑑r$$
(15)
where $`w`$ parameterizes the Yang Mills field (as in EYM ) and the term $`V(w)=(1/2)(1w^2)^2`$ which arises from the self interaction of the non-abelian fields plays a role of an effective – and non-negative– potential in this situation). It is clear that in this case the mass of the hairy black hole is larger than that of the Schwarzschild solution with the same horizon area. In fact it should be quite easy to numerically test whether the change in stability is associated with the change in the sign of this integral and we expect to do this in the near future.

Finally a note regarding the No Hair Conjecture and the nature of the counterexample obtained in Min . The standard understanding is that one says that there are hairy black holes, if within a specific theory, the boundary conditions and charges at infinity are not sufficient to uniquely specify a stationary black hole solution. If one were to take the position (not advocated by these authors, but apparently advocated by the authors of Min ) that one only considers stable black holes in this context, then in order to say that one has found hair it is not enough to show that the new solutions are stable, one must also ensure that the trivial solution remains stable as well. In fact using the result of the analysis of Inestability , we can easily prove that for certain values of the parameters the Schwarzschild Anti de Sitter solution will be unstable in this context, and thus the issue of the violation of the weakened version of the No Hair Conjecture in the scalar field arena, would be far from settled.

The perturbations around the Schwarzschild Anti de Sitter black hole with $`\varphi \varphi _{\mathrm{}}`$ are described by:

$$\begin{array}{c}\mu (t,r)=\mu _0(r)+ϵ\mu _1(t,r)\\ \delta (t,r)=ϵ\delta _1(t,r)\\ \varphi (t,r)=\varphi _{\mathrm{}}+ϵ\varphi _1(t,r)\\ \frac{V}{\varphi }=ϵ\varphi _1(t,r)\alpha ^2\end{array}$$
(16)
where $`\alpha ^2=\frac{^2V}{\varphi ^2}|_\varphi _{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`\mu _0(r)=1\frac{2M}{r}+\lambda r^2`$. The first order perturbated equation for the scalar field is:

$$\ddot{\varphi _1}=\mu _0\left[\mu _0\varphi _1^{\prime \prime }+\left(\frac{2}{r}\mu _0+\mu _0^{}\right)\varphi _1^{}+\alpha ^2\varphi _1\right]$$
(17)
and the first order perturbed Einstein equations are identically satisfied by $`\delta _1=0`$ and $`\mu _1=0`$.

Equation (17) can be written as $`\ddot{\varphi _1}=A\varphi _1`$ where $`A=D^aD_a+V`$ and $`D_a`$ is the covariant derivative associated with the auxiliary spatial metric

$${}_{}{}^{(3)}ds^2=dx^2+r(x)^2(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\phi ^2)$$
(18)
where

$$x(r)=_{r_H}^r𝑑r^{}\left(1\frac{2m}{r^{}}+\lambda r^2\right)^1.$$
(19)
Note that when $`r\mathrm{}`$, $`x`$ converges to a finite constant that we denote by $`c`$. In this way we can write:

$$D^aD_a=\frac{d^2}{dx^2}+\frac{2\mu _0(x)}{r(x)}\frac{d}{dx}.$$
(20)
As mentioned in Inestability , if $`\psi `$ is a vector of the Hilbert space $`L^2`$ with inner product

$$\psi _1,\psi _2=_0^{2\pi }_0^\pi _0^cr^2\psi _1\psi _2\mathrm{sin}\theta 𝑑x𝑑\theta 𝑑\phi $$
(21)
such that $`\psi ,A\psi <0`$ then, the configuration is unstable.

If we choose $`\psi =\frac{P(x)}{r(x)^n}`$ with $`P(x)`$ any (finite order) polynomial and $`n1`$ we obtain a finite norm element of $`L^2`$. If we take for instance $`n=1`$ then

$$\psi ,A\psi =4\pi _0^c𝑑xP(x)\left[\frac{d^2P(x)}{dx^2}+\mu _0P(x)\left(\alpha ^2\frac{2M}{r^3}2\lambda \right)\right]$$
(22)
thus, if $`\alpha ^2>\frac{2M}{r_H^3}+2\lambda `$, and we take $`P`$ to be any polynomial on $`x`$ which is positive definite and has positive definite second derivative in the interval $`(0,c)`$, then $`\psi ,A\psi 0`$ showing that the configuration is unstable.

## III CONCLUSION

We have carefully analyzed the reasons behind the possibility of scalar hair in the asymptotically Anti de Sitter case comparing with the situation in the asymptotically flat case. We have discussed also the issue of stability and found a very simple explanation which in fact points to the instability within these theories and boundary conditions of the usual Schwarzschild Anti de Sitter solution. This work has dealt with the minimal coupled case, its extension to the non-minimal coupled case is trivial if we can perform a conformal transformation (i.e. if the required conformal factor can be shown to be nowhere vanishing) , in the nontrivial cases it is hindered by the fact that in such case the control provided by the WEC over the signs of the various terms in eq. (7) is lost. We now briefly note ADS/CFT  that according to the conjecture of ADS/CFT correspondence the Schwarzschild Anti de Sitter solution of the theory in the bulk should correspond to a thermal state of the conformal theory in the Anti de Sitter “boundary”. But, as the black hole solution is unstable, so should be the corresponding thermal state, and it seems very difficult to envision what possibly could it be meant by a thermal state ( by definition an equilibrium state involving fluctuations) that is unstable. Needless is to say that such issues should be further investigated and our point in mentioning them here is to note how the study of hairy black holes can have implications in other, apparently disconnected subjects.

## IV Acknowledgments

D.S. wishes to thank A. Ashtekar, A, Sen and U. Nucamendi for helpful discussions. This work was in part supported by DGAPA-UNAM Grant No. IN 112401 and by CONACyT grant 32272-E. J.A.G. acknowledges support by CONACyT PhD. fellowship 149945. D.S acknowledges partial support by the Eberly Endowment and thanks Penn State University for its hospitality.


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# Magnetoresistance and magnetic anisotropy in La0.5Sr0.5CoO3-δ film

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Hole-doped lanthanum cobaltates of the type La1-xSrxCoO3 have attracted much attention in recent years due to their unique magnetic and transport properties . Study of this system is also important for understanding the nature of colossal magnetoresistance in the related oxides, doped manganites . For technical application, the epitaxial films of these compounds are mainly implied to be used. In that case the shape anisotropy and the film-substrate lattice interaction can induce magnetization anisotropy and, therefore, magnetoresistance (MR) anisotropy (bulk samples of these compounds show no marked magnetic and MR anisotropy). This point was studied rather intensively in manganite films (see  and references therein), but it is hardly to find in literature some studies of this type for doped cobaltates. Beside this, the properties of doped cobaltates are influenced by their (extrinsic and intrinsic) magnetic inhomogeneity. In this report we present a study of La0.5Sr0.5CoO3-δ film which demonstrates a combined influence of the magnetic anisotropy and inhomogeneity on its transport and magnetic properties.

## 2 EXPERIMENTAL

The La0.5Sr0.5CoO3-δ film (about 220 nm thick) was grown by pulsed-laser deposition (PLD) on a (001) oriented LaAlO3 substrate. The ceramic target used was prepared by a standard solid-state reaction technique. A PLD system with an Nd-YAG laser operating at 1.06 $`\mu `$m was used to ablate the target. The pulse energy was about 0.39 J with a repetition rate of 12 Hz and pulse duration of 10 ns. The film was deposited with a substrate temperature of 880$`\pm 5^{}`$C in oxygen atmosphere at a pressure of about 8 Pa. The film was cooled down to room temperature after deposition at an oxygen pressure about $`10^5`$ Pa. The target and film were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) study.

The film resistance, as a function of temperature and magnetic field $`H`$ (up to 20 kOe), was measured using a standard four-point technique. The field was applied parallel or perpendicular to the film plane. In both cases it was perpendicular to the transport current. The magnetization, $`M`$, was measured in a Faraday-type magnetometer.

## 3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Temperature dependences of the film magnetization for the field directions parallel \[$`M_{}(T)`$\] and perpendicular \[$`M_{}(T)`$\] to the film plane are shown in Fig. 1. The Curie temperature, $`T_c`$, is found to be about 250 K. The $`M_{}(T)`$ behaviour is quite common for ferromagnetic (FM) metals. At fairly high field used, 2 kOe, the $`M_{}(T)`$ curve is found to be well above the $`M_{}(T)`$ curve. It is reasonable to suppose that this is determined mainly by the shape anisotropy. Closer inspection shows, however, that $`M_{}(T)`$ behavior cannot be attributed solely to the shape-anisotropy effect: $`M_{}(T)`$ and $`M_{}(T)`$ are practically equal in rather broad temperature range below $`T_c`$, then (going to lower temperature) the $`M_{}(T)`$ curve goes rather abruptly well below the $`M_{}(T)`$ curve and becomes non-monotonic with a pronounced increase in $`M_{}(T)`$ at low temperatures. These $`M_{}(T)`$ features can be caused by the strain-induced magnetic anisotropy due to the film-substrate interaction. This guess is supported by the XRD study which has revealed that the film has an out-of-plane tensile strain. For materials with the positive magnetostriction this must favours an out-of-plane easy magnetization.

The temperature dependence of the resistivity, $`\rho (T)`$, is non-monotonic (Fig. 2) with a maximum at $`T250`$ K and a minimum at $`T107`$ K. La0.5Sr0.5CoO3-δ samples with fairly perfect crystalline structure and $`\delta `$ close to zero are known to be metallic ($`d\rho /dT>0`$) in the whole range below and above $`T_c`$ . The $`\rho (T)`$ behaviour in Fig. 2 reflects inhomogeneous structure of the film and some oxygen deficiency. Due to the last factor, the hole concentration is less then a nominal one (at $`\delta =0`$). This is responsible for a resistance peak at $`T=250`$ K which is common for low-doped samples with $`0.2x0.3`$ . The low temperature resistance minimum is typical for systems of FM regions (grains or clusters) with rather weak interconnections. The inhomogenenous structure can be determined by technological factors of sample preparation (causing the polycrystalline structure with rather high tunneling bariers between the grains) or by the phase separation into the hole-rich and hole-poor phase . For an extended discussion of these points for cobaltate films see reference .

The MR is found to be anisotropic. The absolute values of negative MR in fields parallel to the film plane are considerably above those in perpendicular fields (Fig. 3). This MR anisotropy takes place only in FM state and disappears for $`T>T_c`$ (Fig. 3). An increase in MR with decreasing temperature (in the range well below $`T_c`$) is one more indication of poor enough connectivity between the FM grains (or clusters) in the film.

The data presented in Fig. 3 are pertaining to negative MR for fairly high fields. In general, the MR curves are hysteretic and have specific features in low-field range (Fig. 4). Actually, their behaviour correlates with that of magnetization curves. In particular, the field $`H=H_p`$, at which MR has a peak (Fig. 4), corresponds to value of the coercive force ($`H_c`$). The value of $`H_p`$ decreases with increasing temperature and goes to zero with approaching $`T_c`$. The magnitude of positive MR in the low-field range, $`\mathrm{\Delta }R(H_p)=[R(H_p)R(0)]/R(0)`$, is some measure of the remanent magnetization.

We found that $`H_p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }R(H_p)`$ depend on the field direction and reflect in this way the magnetization anisotropy. In particular, at $`T4.2`$ K the value of $`H_p`$ in the out-of-plane field is less than that in the in-plane field, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }R(H_p)`$ value is higher for the out-of-plane field direction. The opposite relations (that is, lesser $`H_p`$ values and higher $`\mathrm{\Delta }R(H_p)`$ values for the in-plane field) are found for higher temperatures $`T70`$ K. This implies that at low temperatures the out-of-plane magnetization is favoured, whereas at higher temperatures the in-plane magnetization becomes dominant. The pronounced increase in $`M_{}(T)`$ at low temperatures (Fig. 1) supports additionally this suggestion. All these are doubtless indications of the temperature-driven spin reorientation transition which is a result of competition between the shape anisotropy and the strain-induced anisotropy. This transition has been studied intensively for films of common FM metals (see, e. g. ), but was never mentioned for manganite or cobaltate films.


text:
# Statistical analysis of solar H𝛼 flares

## 1 Introduction

With the discovery of the first solar flare observed independently by R.C. Carrington and R. Hodgson on September 1, 1859, knowledge about these energetic phenomena on the Sun has steadily increased. The statistical investigations of the characteristics of solar H$`\alpha `$ flares essentially started in the 1930s, when a worldwide surveillance of the Sun based on Hale’s spectrohelioscope was established (Cliver 1995). Since then many papers have been published analyzing different statistical aspects of solar flares. However, in most of the papers only single aspects are investigated and/or the data set comprises a quite limited period. Moreover, there exists no recent paper extensively studying the statistical properties of solar H$`\alpha `$ flares.

In the present paper we make use of the substantial data collection of solar H$`\alpha `$ flares in the Solar Geophysical Data (SGD). We selected the period January 1975 (since then the H$`\alpha `$ flares are listed with the same content and format) to December 1999. With this selection we have a homogeneous data set comprising almost 100 000 single flare events, which provides a significant statistical basis. Furthermore, as the selected period entirely covers two solar cycles, 21 and 22, and the rising phase of solar cycle 23 until the end of year 1999, the data set also enables us to analyze dependency of the flare characteristics on the solar cycle.

The paper is structured as follows. In Sect. 2 a characterization of the data set is given. Sect. 3 describes the applied methods. In Sect. 4 the results are presented and discussed, comprising a statistical analysis of the temporal flare parameters combining the data of the overall period, such as flare duration, rise times, decay times (Sect. 4.1) and event asymmetries (Sect. 4.2). Also, we analyze the above-mentioned temporal and spatial flare characteristics, namely the N-S and E-W asymmetry, and its dependency on the solar cycle (Sect. 4.3). Sect. 5 contains a summary of the main results and the conclusions.

## 2 Data

For the present analysis we make use of the H$`\alpha `$ flares listed in the SGD for January 1975 to December 1999. During this period the occurrence of 97 894 H$`\alpha `$ flare events is reported. Table 1 lists the number of flares with respect to the different importance classes, denoting the flare size, i.e. subflares (S), flares of importance 1, 2, 3 and 4. In Table 2 the number of flares is subdivided into the three brightness classes, characterizing the intensity of the flare emission in H$`\alpha `$, i.e. f(aint), n(ormal) and b(right) flares. Note that the total number of flare events subdivided into importance classes and brightness classes differs from each other as well as from the overall number of reported flares due to incomplete early flare reports, where for some events the importance class and/or the brightness class is not given.

It can be clearly seen in Table 1 that the percentage of flares of importance 2, 3, and 4 is very small, covering only $``$1.2% of the overall number of events. Especially during periods of minimum solar activity, their number is vanishing. Therefore, to ensure a statistically meaningful data set, for the analysis these three importance classes are merged into one group, denoted as $`>`$1.

In Table 3 we list the number of flares belonging to the different groups of importance and brightness classes, resulting in nine subclasses. The table clearly reveals that the importance and brightness classes show a strong interdependence. Subflares have a strong tendency to be faint, importance 1 flares to be of normal brightness and importance $`>`$1 flares to be of bright or normal brightness. Therefore, in the detailed analysis we do not consider the partitioning of flares with respect to all the subclasses but only with respect to the importance classes. The choice of the importance instead of the brightness classes is motivated by the fact that the importance classes are determined in a more objective way, i.e. the measured area of a flare, than the brightness classes, i.e. the subjective estimation of the flare intensity by the observer.

The present statistical analysis deals with temporal as well as spatial characteristics of H$`\alpha `$ flares. For the analysis of temporal flare parameters, such as duration, rise times, decay times and event asymmetries, we make use of letter codes listed in the SGD, which describe the quality of the reported start, end and maximum times. The qualifiers “U”, “E” and “D” indicate that the given time is uncertain, the event started before or ended after the reported time. Additionally, digit qualifiers are annotated (from 1 to 9, given in minutes), which describe the spread among the times reported by different observatories. An asterisk denotes a spread of more than 9 minutes.

For the analysis of temporal flare parameters events marked with an “U”, “E”, “D” or an asterisk are discarded, in order to prevent biases due to uncertainties in the reported times. Since the data set is quite huge, this rejection of data has no distinct influence on the statistics. Applying these selection criteria, we get 75 739 H$`\alpha `$ flare events with reported importance class, covering 68 948 subflares (91.0%), 6169 flares of importance 1 (8.2%) and 622 of importance $`>`$1 (0.8%). For the flares with reported brightness class 76 975 events are obtained. Note that for the analysis of spatial flare parameters, such as N-S and E-W asymmetries, the original data set as listed in Table 1 and Table 2 is used.

## 3 Analysis and methods

### 3.1 Calculated parameters

The H$`\alpha `$ flares that occurred within the considered time span are statistically analyzed with respect to their temporal evolution. From the evolution steps that are observed within a flare event, i.e., start time $`t_{\mathrm{start}}`$, end time $`t_{\mathrm{end}}`$ and maximum time $`t_{\mathrm{max}}`$, we calculated the duration ($`t_{\mathrm{start}}t_{\mathrm{end}}`$), the rise time ($`t_{\mathrm{max}}t_{\mathrm{start}}`$) and the decay time ($`t_{\mathrm{end}}t_{\mathrm{max}}`$). Furthermore, in order to characterize the proportion of the rise and the decay time of a flare event, we computed the event asymmetry index $`A_{\mathrm{ev}}`$ (Pearce et al. 2001), defined as

$$A_{\mathrm{ev}}=\frac{t_{\mathrm{decay}}t_{\mathrm{rise}}}{t_{\mathrm{decay}}+t_{\mathrm{rise}}},$$
(1)
with $`t_{\mathrm{rise}}`$ the rise time and $`t_{\mathrm{decay}}`$ the decay time. The event asymmetry index is a dimension-less quantity within the range $`[1,+1]`$. A value close to zero states that the rise and the decay time are roughly equal. The larger the deviation from zero, the more asymmetric is the evolution of a flare, whereas positive values indicate that the decay phase is longer than the rising phase, for negative values, the opposite.

Furthermore, we analyzed the occurrence frequency of solar flares in relation to the solar hemispheres. It is customary among authors who are investigating N-S and E-W asymmetries to compute the respective asymmetry indices (Letfus 1960). The N-S asymmetry index $`A_{\mathrm{NS}}`$ is defined as

$$A_{\mathrm{NS}}=\frac{n_\mathrm{N}n_\mathrm{S}}{n_\mathrm{N}+n_\mathrm{S}},$$
(2)
with $`n_\mathrm{N}`$ and $`n_\mathrm{S}`$ the number of flares occurring in the northern and southern hemisphere, respectively. The E-W asymmetry index $`A_{\mathrm{EW}}`$ is defined analogously. Asymmetry indices close to zero indicate an equal distribution of flares with respect to the hemispheres. Positive values of the N-S and the E-W asymmetry index characterize an excess of flares in the northern and the eastern hemisphere, respectively.

### 3.2 Statistical measures

According to the distributions of the various temporal flare parameters, which are calculated in the frame of this analysis, the determination of the average values was chosen differently from the commonly used arithmetic mean. Since the relevant distributions are significantly asymmetric (see Figs. 1, 2 and 3), the average is better represented by the median instead of the arithmetic mean. Moreover, the median is more insensitive with respect to extreme data values than the arithmetic mean. The median $`\stackrel{~}{x}`$ of a distribution of values {$`x_i`$} is given by that value, which has equal numbers of values above and below it. Note that for distributions with positive skewness the median value is smaller than the arithmetic mean, whereas for distributions with negative skewness it is larger.

Furthermore, as a robust measure of dispersion we applied the median absolute deviation, which is more appropriate for the kind of distributions we are dealing with than the standard deviation. The median absolute deviation $`\stackrel{~}{D}`$ is defined as

$$\stackrel{~}{D}=\mathrm{Median}\{|x_i\stackrel{~}{x}|\},$$
(3)
where {$`x_i`$} denote the data values and $`\stackrel{~}{x}`$ is the median of the {$`x_i`$}. Additionally, we also make use of the 95% confidence interval, which gives the probability that for a frequent use of the applied procedure (which is legitimated by the huge data set), 95% of the data are gathered within the confidence limits. A conservative 95% confidence interval for the median is given by a rule of thumb as $`\stackrel{~}{x}\pm c_{95}`$ with

$$c_{95}=\frac{1.58(Q_3Q_1)}{\sqrt{n}}.$$
(4)
$`Q_1`$ and $`Q_3`$ denote the first and the third quartile, respectively, $`n`$ the total number of data values. The first quartile $`Q_1`$, or 25th percentile, of a distribution is given by that value which has 25% of values below it; the third quartile $`Q_3`$, or 75th percentile, is given by the value with 75% of values below it. Note that the median $`\stackrel{~}{x}`$ is identical to the second quartile $`Q_2`$, or 50th percentile.

To specify the statistical significance of the N-S and E-W asymmetry indices, we followed Letfus (1960). The dispersion of the N-S asymmetry of a random distribution of flares is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{NS}}=\pm \frac{1}{\sqrt{2(n_\mathrm{N}+n_\mathrm{S})}},$$
(5)
which depends on the total number of flares occurring in the northern and the southern hemisphere, respectively. To verify the reliability of the observed N-S asymmetry values, a $`\chi ^2`$ test is applied with

$$\chi =\frac{2(n_\mathrm{N}n_\mathrm{S})}{\sqrt{(n_\mathrm{N}+n_\mathrm{S})}}=\frac{\sqrt{2}A_{\mathrm{NS}}}{\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{NS}}}.$$
(6)
If $`A_{\mathrm{NS}}=2\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{NS}}`$, the probability that the observed N-S asymmetry exceeds the dispersion value of a random distribution is $`p=99.5\%`$, specifying asymmetry values which are highly significant. The same test, calculating the corresponding quantities, is also applied to the E-W asymmetry indices.

## 4 Results and Discussion

### 4.1 Duration, rise and decay time

Fig. 1 shows the distributions of the duration, rise and decay times calculated from all flares reported for the period 1975–1999, which fulfilled the quality criteria regarding start, end and maximum time stated in Sect. 2. All distributions reveal a pronounced positive skewness. The overplotted solid line indicates the median value of the respective distribution. The dashed line indicates the 90th percentile $`P_{90}`$, which states that only 10% of the events have a value larger than $`P_{90}`$. In Table 4 we give a list of various statistical measures characterizing the duration, rise and decay times of the data set, namely the arithmetic mean, the median, the mode (i.e. the most frequently occurring value), and the 90th percentile $`P_{90}`$.

Fig. 2 shows the distributions of the flare duration separately for the different groups of importance classes, i.e., S, 1 and $`>`$1. Table 5 summarizes the median values of the duration, rise and decay times with respect to the different importance classes. Additionally, the 95% confidence interval and the absolute median deviation are given. For the sake of completeness, in Table 6 the same quantities are listed with regard to the different brightness classes. As Table 5 clearly reveals, the duration, rise and decay times increase with the importance class. The same, even if less pronounced, holds for the brightness classes, providing further evidence that the importance and brightness classes are interdependent classification schemes.

The finding that the flare duration increases with increasing importance class, hence with the flare area, is reported by a number of papers (cf. Table 7). Contrary to that, by means of a scatter plot analysis of flare duration versus flare area of an overall number of 16 324 events, Yeung & Pearce (Yeung (1990)) pointed out that there is a continuous distribution of flare duration and flare area, concluding that there is no evidence for more than one class of H$`\alpha `$ flares and that there is no correlation between flare area and duration. However, as can be seen in Fig. 2, the distributions of the flare duration reveal distinct differences for the different classes. For subflares, the distribution reveals a larger skewness and the maximum of the distribution is located at smaller values than for larger flares. We suspect that the continuous distribution of flare duration and flare area found by Yeung & Pearce (Yeung (1990)) results from the fact that most of the flares are subflares ($`90\%`$). Although the relative number of subflares of long duration is very small (see Fig. 2, top panel), their absolute number is still higher than those of large flares. (Due to the different scales of the ordinate this fact does not show up in Fig. 2). Thus, if all flares are considered together, it is not possible to separate the different distributions of different flare classes and the analysis is mainly determined by the behavior of the subflares, which intrinsically prevents detection of more than one class of flare events.

In Table 7 we give an overview of the studies of flare duration that were carried out previously. Since in most papers the arithmetic mean is used, we list in Table 7 the mean values of the duration. For the present analysis, we obtained the following mean values for the flare duration: 18.9 min. for subflares, 35.7 min. for importance 1, 66.3 min. for importance 2 and 116.0 min. for importance 3 flares. For importance 4 flares we do not specify a mean value as out of the four events of this class reported during the considered period, only one event fulfilled the quality criteria given in Sect. 2.

As can be seen in Table 7, the duration values obtained by the different authors reveal a quite large dispersion. The reasons for this can be manifold. One possible reason is given by observational selection effects which are changing over the years. E.g., increasing time cadences in the solar flare patrol lead to an increase in the number of detected short-lived events, most of them subflares. Another aspect might be the fact that in the miscellaneous studies, different data sets are used, in which start, maximum and end times of a flare have been derived/defined by different criteria. Moreover, it has to be considered that the flare classification scheme has changed, from (1, 2, 3) over ($`1`$, 1, 2, 3, $`3+`$) to (S, 1, 2, 3, 4), which sometimes leads to a mismatch in the comparison of values. (E.g., the old importance 1 class may comprise importance 1 flares as well as subflares.) Finally, there may be also physical reasons, i.e., the average flare characteristics, such as flare duration, may change in the course of the solar cycle.

As we have a homogeneous data set at our disposal (for the data collected in the SGD a constant classification scheme and a well-defined methodology to derive start, end and maximum times is in use), covering more than two solar cycles, we were able to analyze the temporal flare parameters as a function of the solar cycle (Sect. 4.3.2 and 4.3.3), with the objective to determine if there are indeed physical changes in the temporal flare characteristics.

### 4.2 Event asymmetry

H$`\alpha `$ flares do not reveal a symmetrical behavior regarding their temporal evolution, i.e. the rise time is not the same as the decay time. With the use of the event asymmetry index defined by Eq. 1 we investigate this behavior quantitatively. Fig. 3 shows the distributions of the event asymmetries calculated for the different importance classes. All distributions reveal a pronounced negative skewness, i.e. an accumulation at positive values, showing that for the majority of events the decay phase is significantly longer than the rising phase.

In Table 8 we list the median values of the event asymmetries for the different importance classes, as well as the 95% confidence intervals, the absolute median deviations, and the 10th percentiles. It can be seen that the asymmetries increase with increasing importance class. Since the differences of event asymmetries between the various classes are larger than the 95% confidence intervals, the effect can be considered as statistically significant. For the total number of events we obtain a median event asymmetry of $``$0.6, which implies that for about 50% of the events the decay phase is more than 4 times as long as the rising phase. A value of $`P_{10}0.0`$ means that only about 10% of all flares have a shorter decay than rise time. Considering only flares of importance $`>`$1, we obtain for $`P_{10}0.2`$, stating that for about 90% of that type of events, the decay time is even more than 1.5 times the rise time.

### 4.3 Dependency on the solar cycle

#### 4.3.1 Number of flares

In Fig. 4 we plot the monthly number of H$`\alpha `$ flares and the monthly mean Sunspot Numbers for the whole period of January 1975 to December 1999. The correlation coefficient of the Sunspot Numbers with the total number of flares occurring per month gives a value of $``$0.93, evidence that the occurrence of H$`\alpha `$ flares is in strong coincidence with the solar cycle.

Fig. 5 shows the monthly number of flares separately for the different importance classes. It is noteworthy that, although cycles 21 and 22 do not differ remarkably regarding the Sunspot Numbers, there is a significant difference in the flare occurrence rate (see Figs. 4 and 5). For the two solar cycles, which are totally covered by the data, i.e. solar cycle 21 (June 1976 – August 1986) and solar cycle 22 (August 1986 – April 1996), we list the average monthly rate of H$`\alpha `$ flares per cycle (Table 9). On the one hand, solar cycle 21 reveals a conspicuously higher rate of subflares (which is also responsible for the higher rate of the total of flares). On the other hand, solar cycle 22 shows a higher rate of energetic flares, i.e. events of importance $``$1.

This fact that a cycle with a high rate of subflares produces a smaller number of major flares than a cycle with less subflares might be related to the mechanism of energy storage and release during solar flares. In order to produce a large flare, an active region must first store a vast amount of energy, which takes some time. The release of this energy during a flare occurs either due to an internal instability or an external destabilization, which can be caused, e.g., by nearby emerging new magnetic flux or by a blast wave coming from another site of activity. Thus, if there are many small releases of magnetic energy in the form of subflares, there is little chance that enough energy can be stored before the energy storage site is destabilized (Švestka 1995).

#### 4.3.2 Duration, rise and decay time

In Fig. 6 we plot the yearly median values of the flare duration, rise and decay times from 1975 to 1999. It can be clearly seen that each of the quantities reveals a trend to decreasing values. We have plotted a linear least squares fit superimposed on each of the time series in Fig. 6. Obviously, such a trend does not represent a physical phenomenon but we suggest that it is caused by observational selection effects. In particular, the time cadences of solar flare observations have increased with regard to former times, which enables us to detect more short-lived events. Further evidence for this explanation is provided by the comparison with a previous paper of the authors (Temmer et al. 2000), in which the temporal flare parameters of the subset 1994–1999 were investigated. For the flares of importance 1 and $`>`$1, the calculated duration values are very similar (the differences are of the order of the 95% confidence intervals) but for the subflares, to which most of the short-lived events belong, the average duration is distinctly shorter ($``$10 min.) than those obtained by the present analysis of the period 1975–1999 ($``$14 min., see Table 5).

In order to find out if there is also a physical change in the duration, rise and decay times with the solar cycle, we subtracted the respective trends from the yearly duration, rise and decay time values and calculated the correlation coefficients with the yearly mean Sunspot Numbers (data taken from the SGD). The correlation coefficients yield quite high values for the duration as well as for the decay times, 0.71 and 0.73, respectively. For the rise times it is distinctly lower, with a value of 0.40. This means that the average duration and decay times are longer during times of maximum activity than during minimum phases, whereas the rise times do not show a noticeable variation with the solar cycle (see also the time series in Fig. 6). A similar behavior is pointed out by Wilson (1987), who performed a statistical study of flares occurring in the year 1980, i.e. around solar maximum (Wilson 1982a, 1982b, 1983), and in the year 1975, i.e. around solar minimum (Wilson Wilson (1987)). He found a strong increase of the mean flare duration (1975: $`18.1\pm 1.1`$ min., 1980: $`29.8\pm 2.2`$ min.) and decay time (1975: $`12.9\pm 0.8`$ min., 1980: $`22.1\pm 1.7`$ min.), and a slighter but still pronounced increase of the mean rise time (1975: $`5.2\pm 0.4`$ min., 1980: $`7.7\pm 0.8`$ min.) from solar minimum to maximum.

We want to stress that the outcome of the present analysis that the flare duration and decay times are significantly longer during times of solar maximum than during solar minimum is not caused by the fact that during maximum activity the number of large flares with long duration is higher, as the number of large flares is too low to significantly influence the overall statistics. However, to be sure, we repeated the analysis considering only subflares, which revealed the same behavior as the overall data set, i.e. a significant change of the duration and decay times in the course of the solar cycle.

#### 4.3.3 Event asymmetry

In Fig. 7 we plot the yearly median values of the event asymmetries, defined by Eq. 1. The time series reveals a positive trend, resulting from the different trends of the rise and decay times. Again, we calculated the correlation coefficient with the yearly mean Sunspot Numbers after subtraction of the trend, revealing no noticeable variation of the event asymmetries coincident with the solar cycle.

However, as can be seen in Fig. 7, during minima of solar activity the event asymmetries drop. This means that during times of low solar activity on average the energy build-up and decay of a flare takes place in a less asymmetric way than in other phases of the solar cycle. In order to check if this phenomenon is a statistical selection effect, induced by the low number of large flares during minimum activity, which have larger asymmetries than small ones (see Table 8), we repeated the analysis taking into account only subflares. The behavior remained qualitatively the same, suggesting that the decrease in the asymmetries during minimum activity is a real effect. The drop can be explained by the fact that the decay times are decreased during solar minimum phases but the rise times basically remain constant during the solar cycle.

#### 4.3.4 North-South asymmetry

The existence of a N-S asymmetry of solar activity is generally accepted even if the phenomenon is still not satisfactorily interpreted. Several studies deal with the N-S asymmetry of various kinds of manifestations of solar activity, such as sunspots (Sunspot Numbers, areas, groups, magnetic classes, etc.), flares, prominences, radio bursts, hard X-ray bursts, gamma-ray bursts and coronal mass ejections. Investigations of the N-S asymmetry of solar flares have been carried out by Ružičková-Topolová (1974), Roy (1977), Knoška (1984), Verma (1987), Garcia (1990), Viktorinová & Antalová (1991), Joshi (1995), Ataç & Özgüç (1996), Li et al. (1998) and Ataç & Özgüç (2001). All papers reveal the existence of a N-S asymmetry; however, there are different outcomes if the evolution of the N-S asymmetry is correlated with the solar cycle or not.

In Fig. 8 we plot the yearly N-S asymmetry index, defined by Eq. 2, for the years 1975–1999. 21 out of 25 asymmetry values turn out to be highly significant, with a probability $`p99.5\%`$ that the observed asymmetry index exceeds the dispersion value of a random distribution. The correlation coefficient calculated from the N-S asymmetry time series and the yearly mean Sunspot Numbers is very low, showing that the N-S asymmetry does not evolve in coincidence with the solar cycle.

In Fig. 9 we give another kind of representation of the N-S distribution, which was applied by Garcia (1990) to soft X-ray flares. In the figure, the cumulative number of flares occurring in the northern (solid lines) and the southern hemisphere (dashed lines) during solar cycles 21 and 22 and the rising phase of solar cycle 23 is plotted. The vertical spacing between the two lines is a measure of the northern/southern excess of H$`\alpha `$ flares up to that time.

As Fig. 9 reveals, for solar cycle 21 an excess of flares occurring in the northern hemisphere develops during the rising phase of the cycle, staying roughly constant during the phase of major activity. About three years before the end of the cycle the northern excess degenerates and finally a very slight southern excess remains (50.6% south, 49.4% north). A same behavior but with a more pronounced spacing was found by Garcia (1990) for soft X-ray flares $``$M9 (see his Fig. 1), who concluded from that result that the N-S asymmetry evolves in phase with the solar cycle. Viktorinová & Antalová (1991), who analyzed soft X-ray LDE (long duration event) flares during solar cycle 21 also found that the larger number of flares in the northern hemisphere is basically compensated by increased flare activity in the southern hemisphere in the declining phase of the cycle.

However, for solar cycle 22 the situation is quite different, as can be seen in Fig. 9. During the rising and maximum phase of the cycle a slight southern excess is present, which is strongly enhanced during the declining phase. Finally, for the whole cycle a distinct southern excess remains (54.4% south, 45.6% north). A southern flare dominance during solar cycle 22 was also obtained by Joshi (1995) for H$`\alpha `$ flares and by Li et al. (1998) for soft X-ray flares $``$M1. However, both studies were constrained to the maximum phase of the cycle.

Considering the whole time period from the beginning of year 1975 to the end of year 1999, a change in the predominance of flare occurrence in the northern and southern hemisphere can be detected. During most of solar cycle 21, the northern hemisphere was predominant. At the end of the cycle the dominance shifted to the southern hemisphere, which prevailed also during the whole of solar cycle 22. In the course of solar cycle 23 it seems that after a strong peak of the N-S asymmetry indicating a pronounced southern excess during the minimum phase 1996, the predominance again shifts to the northern hemisphere (see Figs. 8 and 9). The preference for the northern hemisphere during the rising phase of solar cycle 23 is also reported by Ataç & Özgüç (2001), who analyzed the N-S asymmetry of the solar flare index. However, as no unique relationship between the N-S asymmetry index as well as the cumulative northern/southern flare counts and the solar cycle can be found, the issue of whether the N-S asymmetry is in phase with the solar cycle remains ambiguous.

#### 4.3.5 East-West asymmetry

The existence of an E-W asymmetry of solar activity is a more controversial issue than that of a N-S asymmetry. Since the E-W distribution depends on the reference position, there is no obvious physical reason why an E-W asymmetry should exist for longer periods (Heras et al. 1990). However, several authors (Letfus 1960; Letfus & Ružičková-Topolová 1980; Knoška 1984; Joshi 1995) found evidence for the existence of a small but significant E-W asymmetry in the occurrence of H$`\alpha `$ flares. Heras et al. (1990) pointed out that the flare events are not uniformly spread in longitude, stressing that this fact has no influence on the E-W asymmetry but may be attributed to the transit of active zones on the solar disk. However, Heras et al. (1990) also found periods of pronounced and prolonged E-W asymmetry, which exceed the expectations from pure random fluctuations. Li et al. (1998), who studied the E-W asymmetry of soft X-ray flares, found slight E-W asymmetries, which they evaluated as not significant. However, they pointed out that the flares are not uniformly distributed over the visible longitude range.

In Fig. 10 we plot the yearly E-W asymmetry index, for the period 1975 to 1999. Even if the E-W asymmetry values are rather low, 18 out of 25 asymmetry values reveal a high statistical significance with $`p99.5\%`$. A comparison with Fig. 8 shows that the E-W asymmetry is obviously lower than the N-S asymmetry. However, the E-W asymmetry also can be quite pronounced during certain periods, e.g., during the minimum phase in 1996 the E-W asymmetry reveals a strong negative peak, indicating a distinct western excess. At the same time, the N-S asymmetry reveals a strong southern excess. An enhancement of the N-S and E-W asymmetry during solar minima has already been reported in several papers (Roy 1977, Knoška 1984, Heras et al. 1990, Joshi 1995, Ataç & Özgüç 1996). However, we can validate this effect only for the solar minimum in 1996. Moreover, as the correlation coefficient of the N-S asymmetry time series and the yearly mean Sunspot Numbers is very low, there is no indication that in general the E-W asymmetry evolves in phase with the solar cycle.

In Fig. 11 the cumulative number of flares occurring in the eastern (solid lines) and the western hemisphere (dashed lines) during solar cycles 21 and 22 and the rising phase of solar cycle 23 is plotted. Solar cycle 21 and 22 reveal a rather similar behavior. Except for the early phases of the cycles, a slight but continuously increasing eastern excess develops. The final excess amounts to 51.2% east, 48.8% west for solar cycle 21 and 51.5% east, 48.5% west for cycle 22. For solar cycle 23, only a part of the ascending phase is covered by the data. During this phase, a western excess developed. However, this western excess may be overruled by the following years of maximum activity, since the number of flares at the end of 1999 covers just about 15–20% of the overall flare number, which can be expected for the whole cycle. Therefore, no definitive conclusion about the E-W asymmetry of solar cycle 23 can be drawn.

Comprising previous investigations of the E-W asymmetry of solar flares and the present paper, solar cycles 17 to 22 are covered by the analysis (Letfus 1960: 1935–1958; Ružičková-Topolová 1974: 1957–1965; Letfus & Ružičková-Topolová 1980: 1959–1976; Knoška 1984: 1937–1978; Heras et al: 1990: 1976–1985; Joshi 1995: 1989–1991; Li et al. 1998: 1987–1992; present paper: 1975–1999). Considering only those papers in which the found E-W asymmetries are evaluated as significant, it is worthwhile to mention that for longer periods, almost all authors find an excess of flares in the eastern hemisphere. Thus, possibly a low but prolonged dominance of the eastern hemisphere existed during solar cycles 17 to 22, which is a rather surprising outcome.

## 5 Summary and Conclusions

### 5.1 Temporal parameters

The main results of the analysis regarding temporal flare parameters, as duration, rise times, decay times and event asymmetries are summarized in the following. 1) On average, the duration, rise and decay times of flares increase with increasing importance class. The increase is more pronounced for the decay times (factor 4–5 between subflares and flares of importance $`>`$1) than for the rise times (factor 2–3). The same relation holds for the brightness classes but in a weaker manner. 2) The event asymmetries, which characterize the proportion of the decay to the rise time of a flare, are predominantly positive ($`90\%`$). For more than 50% of all flares the decay phase is even more than 4 times as long as the rising phase. 3) On average, the event asymmetries increase with the importance class. 4) The duration changes in phase with the solar cycle, i.e. on average the flare duration is longer during periods of maximum activity than during solar minima. Since the rise times do not reveal a distinct correlation with the solar cycle but the decay times do, the variations of the duration in accordance with the solar cycle are due to the variations of the decay times. 5) The event asymmetries do not reveal a distinct correlation with the solar cycle. However, they decrease during solar minima.

The facts that on the average the flare duration increases with the importance class and the rise times are shorter than the decay times are reported in a number of previous papers (see the references cited in Table 7). However, the new outcome of the present analysis is, on the one hand, that the increase of the duration with the importance class in particular results from the increase of the decay times, which is significantly more pronounced than the increase of the rise times. On the other hand, by the concept of the event asymmetry, we were able to give a quantitative description of the asymmetry in the flare development, which revealed that on average the asymmetry also increases with the importance class. Both results suggest that, with respect to the temporal behavior, the cooling phase of the H$`\alpha `$ flare is more strongly affected by the flare size than the phase of heating-up the chromospheric plasma at the flare site.

Furthermore, a significant change in the duration and decay times with the solar cycle was found. On average, during solar maximum the decay times are larger than during solar minimum, with $`t_{\mathrm{decay}}^{\mathrm{max}}1.5t_{\mathrm{decay}}^{\mathrm{min}}`$. The rise times do not reveal a significant variation in accordance with the cycle. The combination of both facts can also account for the drop in the event asymmetries found during solar minima. These results suggest that the change in the flare duration is mainly caused by the variations of the decay times, giving further evidence that the flare cooling phase is more sensitive to changes in the physical conditions of the chromospheric plasma than the rising phase.

### 5.2 Spatial distributions

The main outcomes of the present analysis regarding the spatial distribution of flares over the different hemispheres are: 1) There exists a significant N-S asymmetry over longer periods, and the dominance of one hemisphere over the other can persist for more than one cycle. 2) For certain cycles there may be evidence that the N-S asymmetry evolves in coincidence with the solar cycle, but in general this is not the case. 3) There exists a slight but significant E-W asymmetry with a prolonged eastern excess during solar cycles 21 and 22. Combining the results obtained by previous authors and the present paper, possibly an eastern excess of solar flares existed during solar cycles 17 to 22.

The existence of a N-S asymmetry is generally accepted but still not definitely interpreted. One possible explanation of the N-S asymmetry of solar activity phenomena is that a time difference in the development of solar activity on the northern and the southern hemisphere exists (e.g., Tritakis et al. 1997). However, in this case the N-S asymmetry is expected to evolve in coincidence with the solar cycle, which is rather ambiguous. Another explanation utilizes the concept of “superactive regions”, which are large, complex, active regions containing sunspots (Bai 1987, 1988). Such superactive regions produce the majority of solar flare events and appear preferentially in certain areas of the Sun, so-called “active zones”. As shown by Bai et al. (1988) in the past, active zones were present on the Sun, which persisted for several solar cycles. In that frame, the N-S asymmetry can be attributed to the existence of active zones in the northern and southern hemispheres, which can persist over long periods.

Also the fact that flares are not uniformly spread in heliographic longitude over the solar disk (note that this non-uniformity has a different meaning than the E-W asymmetry), pointed out by Heras et al. (1990) and Li et al. (1998), can be understood in the framework of the active zones concept. The longitudes, at which the active zones are located, are more flare-productive than other longitude ranges. The active zones induce a pronounced and non-random flare activity, which is superimposed onto an episodic and random flare activity coming from the other (less active) regions of the solar disk (Heras et al. 1990). However, the idea of active zones cannot account for an E-W asymmetry persisting over time scales larger than those of the solar rotation.

The first report of an E-W asymmetry in solar activity was given by Maunder (1907), who found that the total spot area and total number of spot groups were larger in the eastern than in the western hemisphere. A possible interpretation of this effect was given by Minnaert (1946). A forward tilt of the vertical sunspot axis causes a “physical” foreshortening of the spots, which acts more strongly on spots on the western than on those on the eastern hemisphere. However, it cannot be seen how such an effect could also account for an eastern excess in the flare occurrence rate. In recent papers (Mavromichalaki et al. 1994, Tritakis et al. 1997) it has also been found that the emission of the eastern hemisphere of the corona systematically predominates. However, the coronal E-W asymmetry as well as the E-W asymmetry of solar flares are still unexplained and controversial issues.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors thank Helen Coffey and Craig Clark from NGDC for making available the H$`\alpha `$ flare data of the SGD. M.T., A.V. and A.H. gratefully acknowledge the Austrian Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF grant P13655-PHY) for supporting this project. M.M. acknowledges the support by ASI and MURST.


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# Microflaring of a solar Bright Point Based on observations with the SUMER-spectrometer on board the SOHO observatory

## 1 Introduction

The nature of solar coronal bright points (BP) has been an enigma since their discovery in late 1960’s (e.g. Vaiana et al., 1970). Their correspondence with small bipolar magnetic regions was found by combining ground-based magnetic field measurements with simultaneous space-borne X-ray imaging observations (Krieger et al., 1971; Golub et al., 1977). The bright points are clearly seen in Ca K spectroheliograms as bright “knots” (e.g. Golub & Pasachoff, 1997). The daily number of BP’s found on the Sun varies between several hundreds up to a few thousand (Golub et al., 1974). Zhang et al. (2001) found their density around 800 BP’s for the entire solar surface at any moment.

Golub et al. (1974) found that the diameters of the bright points in X-rays are around $`10^4`$ km (10 - 20 arc sec) and their lifetimes range from 2 hours to 2 days (see also Zhang et al. 2001). The physical studies have indicated the temperatures to be fairly low, $`T2\times 10^6`$ K, and the electron densities $`n_e5\times 10^9`$ cm-3 (e.g. Golub & Pasachoff, 1997), although cooler BP’s exist (Habbal, 1990). Assuming that almost all BP’s represent new magnetic flux emerging at the solar surface, their overall contribution to the solar magnetic flux would exceed that of the active regions (Golub and Pasachoff, 1997).

BP’s often show irregular intensity and spatial shape variations on time scales of minutes which can be called as microflares (Shimojo & Shibata, 1999; Zhang et al. 2001). In particular, Shimojo and Shibata show that the frequency distribution of these microflares, as a function of the peak intensity, show a power law with index 1.7$`\pm 0.4`$ which is consistent with that of ordinary (stronger) flares. However, the total coronal heating can not energetically be due to these microflares, they are too few. Brown et al. (2001), using TRACE, studied for the first time BP’s for their entire lifetime with a cadence of 2 min and spatial resolution of 0.5 arcsec, using hot FeXII and FeXI lines. In particular, they suggested that BP’s are made up of a complex system of dense loops.

In the present paper we report observations of one particular bright point observed with the SUMER-spectrometer onboard SOHO using four ultraviolet lines formed between 2 104 \- 6 105 K.

## 2  Observations

The observations were performed on October 4 and 8, 1996, with the SUMER normal incidence telescope of the SOHO observatory (Wilhelm et al., 1995). The full set of observations will be reported elsewhere (Huovelin et al. 2002); here we concentrate on a specific BP-complex observed October 8, 1996, between UT 15.20 - 17:20.

The region was found by first scanning a larger area near the disk center. The data consist of $`23\times 24`$ raster scans of the detector B first order. The scans were obtained by moving the spectrometer slit horizontally along the East-West (equatorial) direction in 2.25 arcsec steps, corresponding to 1700 km on the solar surface. The wavelength dispersion in each scan-point was perpendicular to the South-North direction, and 4 narrow spectral windows were observed simultaneously in each vertical spatial point (with 2 arcsec height). The observed wavelength intervals consist of 50 wavelength bins with a dispersion 0.0446-0.0447 Å/px (17 km/s, comparable to the thermal broadening of NIV 765 line formed at 105 K). The intervals were centered at the lines N IV (765.146 Å), Ne VIII (770.420 Å), N II (775.965 Å) and O IV (787.740 Å) (see Table 1). The resolving power of SUMER within the observed wavelength range is close to $`\lambda /\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =37000`$ (8 km/s). For radial velocity measurements a better accuracy (around 4 km/s) can be achieved. The scan time for each image was set to 2.8 minutes (6.5 s integration per slit position plus overheads), resulting in 44 images for each spectral line with spectral information inside each 2 x 2.25 arcsec spatial pixel.

The observations were reduced including flat-field and geometrical distortion corrections to the raw uncompressed FITS format data. These standard reductions were made with the SUMER reduction procedures written in IDL (Interactive Data Language, Registered Trademark) at the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, Norway (M. Carlsson, private comm.). Dead time correction was not applied, since the total signal level in the slit was below 50 000 cts/s (see the SUMER Data Cookbook, http://www.mpae.gwdg.de/ mpae\_projects/ SUMER/text/cookbook.html).

The local gain correction was made to all spectra to compensate for gain variations. Finally, wavelength scaling and radiometric conversion to physical units were applied. For the two shortest wavelengths (765 and 770 Å) the scaling was 44.7 mÅ/pixel, and for the other two, 44.6mÅ/pixel. The radiometric calibration was based on the results reported by Wilhelm et al. (1997), the latest calibrations available in the WWW-pages of SUMER during summer 1998 were used. The uncertainty in the absolute flux calibration is $`\pm 15`$ % (Schühle et al., 1998). The instrument compensated solar rotation during each sequence, and the spatial variability in each region could be monitored.

## 3 Results

Line profiles were fitted with the IDL gaussfit-procedure, the mean values of resulting line parameters are given in Table 1. These gaussian fits resulted in line intensity, line center and line width (FWHM) values at each spatial (23 x 24) and temporal (44, separated by 2.8 min) points. Although the spectral resolution was 8 km/s and wavelength bins 17 km/s, the fitting procedure of strong lines permits to measure the line centroids much better. Radial velocities and widths of the strongest lines can be determined with accuracy better than 5 km/s (see Fig. 6). Average non-thermal velocities are also included in Table 1. They are slightly below the sonic velocities and are situated close to the upper boundary of the velocity – temperature correlation in quiet sun as derived by Dere & Mason (1993, their Fig. 17).

Fig.1 shows the spectral windows observed. The quiet sun and spot spectra, as observed with the same instrument settings, can be found from the SUMER-atlas available via http://www.mpae.gwdg.de. Fig.2 shows the time-averaged contour-plot of six observed frames (frames numbers 29 - 34 in Fig.3). The observed region was extremely variable as shown in Fig. 3 where every time-frame is presented. Fig. 4 shows the light curve of the NIV 765 line for the brightest and most persistent bright point in the observed region (A in Fig.2) indicating strong mictoflaring. The variability is very coherent with strong correlation between individual 2 x 2 arc sec spatial pixels. If this bright point consisted of a complex loop system (not resolved with our spatial resolution but suggested by TRACE observations of Brown et al. 2001) this would mean a rapid avalance over the whole bright point region after triggering.

The line intensities were compared with those from the SUMER ATLAS (quiet sun and spot spectra) by dividing them with those of the quiet sun. The line ratios reflect relative emission measures and are proportional to ne2 $`\times `$ V where ne is the electron density and V the emitting volume at the line formation temperature (see Fig. 5). The background in the 50 x 50 arcsec region was somewhat different from the quiet network e.g. by having an excess hot component.

The observed region contained also some short lived transients, like BP-B close to the main BP-A (see Fig. 2). It showed clear 20 km/s up-flows during the outburst (see Fig. 6). On the other hand, BP-A did not show any variability in line shapes irrespective of it strong intensity variations.

## 4 Discussion and Conclusions

The main bright point (A in Fig. 2) had dimensions 8 x 8 arcsec between 2 104 \- 6 105 K. The non-thermal velocities (40 - 45 km/s) were somewhat smaller but close to the sonic ones. The most striking feature of the present observation, lasting 120 min, was the strong microflaring and the appearance of short lived transients. One of these (BP-B in Fig.2) showed clear mass upflows with velocities 20 km/s. No flows were detected elsewhere in the observed region.

Inside the 8 x 8 arcsec area of the BP-A no clear structure could be resolved within the 2 arcsec spatial resolution. All spatial pixels varied coherently with strong correlation between individual pixels (Fig. 4). It is possible that the BP-A consisted of a dense system of small loops triggering each others, so that the whole BP looked like a single variable object. A much better spatial resolution (like in TRACE, Brown et al. 2001) is needed to resolve the issue and to find the BP building blocks.

Comparing the sun and solar type active stars, Vilhu (1987, 1994) suggested a correlation between the CIV 1550 line intensity (105 K) and the magnetic filling factor. Lines formed at 105 K arise close to the loop foot points and are good indicators of their surface area. In the quiet solar network the magnetic filling factor is at one per cent level (one per cent of the surface covered by equipartition fields) while in the most active (and consequently rapidly rotating) stars the filling factor approaches 100 per cent when the CIV line surface flux is 100 times that of the quiet sun. This suggests that the filling factor of BP-A was around 10 per cent (see Fig. 5). In this picture BP-A was similar to the average surface of a moderately active star (like solar type stars in the Hyades cluster, rotating with periods around 10 days or less). Further, some bright points (like the present one) may well be essentially like over dense quiet sun regions. However, much better spatial resolution will be needed to make any definite conclusion.

We also investigated the underlying magnetic field structure of the region during our observation (from the SOI-archive). The MDI-instrument onboard SOHO observed the region between UT 15:16 - 15:36 and 16:45 - 17:05. In both MDI-observations (around the BP-A of Fig.2) two bright positive flux regions (10 and 20 arcsec apart) and two negative flux fragments (30 arcsec apart) are present and look rather persistent. According to Brown et al. (2001) one third of the bright points lie over emerging regions of magnetic flux while the remaining two thirds lie above cancelling magnetic features. It seems that the bright point studied in the present paper belongs to this latter category.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was performed with support from the Academy of Finland (OV and JH). We are very grateful to Matts Carlsson for providing software and useful information for basic data reductions. We thank the referee for valuable criticism.