A logistic model for magnetic energy storage in solar active regions

Previous statistical analyses of a large number of SOHO/MDI full disk longitu-dinal magnetograms provided a result that demonstrated how responses of solar flares to photospheric magnetic properties can be fitted with sigmoid functions. A logistic model reveals that these fitted sigmoid functions might be related to the free energy storage process in solar active regions. Although this suggested model is rather simple, the free energy level of active regions can be estimated and the probability of a solar flare with importance over a threshold can be forecast within a given time window.