  We have investigated the variation of magnetic helicity over a span of
several days around the times of 11 X-class flares which occurred in seven
active regions (NOAA 9672, 10030, 10314, 10486, 10564, 10696, and 10720) using
the magnetograms taken by the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) on board the Solar
and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). As a major result we found that each of
these major flares was preceded by a significant helicity accumulation over a
long period (0.5 to a few days). Another finding is that the helicity
accumulates at a nearly constant rate and then becomes nearly constant before
the flares. This led us to distinguish the helicity variation into two phases:
a phase of monotonically increasing helicity and the following phase of
relatively constant helicity. As expected, the amount of helicity accumulated
shows a modest correlation with time-integrated soft X-ray flux during flares.
However, the average helicity change rate in the first phase shows even
stronger correlation with the time-integrated soft X-ray flux. We discuss the
physical implications of this result and the possibility that this
characteristic helicity variation pattern can be used as an early warning sign
for solar eruptions.
