English

SADCat: A Catalog of Supra-Arcade Downflow Events in Solar Flares

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2026-07-04 v1

Abstract

Supra-arcade downflows (SADs) are sunward-traveling features routinely observed in hot fan structures above magnetic loop arcades during eruptive solar flares. We manually compiled a catalog (SADCat) of 178 SAD-productive flares imaged by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) during solar cycle 24 as a resource for the wider solar flare community. We conducted a preliminary analysis of the SADCat, comparing the flare X-ray and CME properties between eruptive solar flares with and without SADs. We found that peak GOES X-ray flux, flare duration, CME speed, and CME mass have a strong influence on whether a flare produces visible SADs, whereas flare impulsivity and CME acceleration have little effect.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.03697,
  title  = {SADCat: A Catalog of Supra-Arcade Downflow Events in Solar Flares},
  author = {Trestan F. Simon and Ryan J. French},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.03697},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

20 pages, 6 figures, 1 table; accepted for publication in Solar Physics