Related papers: Solar-cycle precursors and predictions
In contrast to the situation with the geodynamo, no breakthrough has been made in the solar dynamo problem for decades. Since the appearance of mean-field electrodynamics in the 1960's, the only really significant advance was in the field…
The solar magnetic activity cycle has an amplitude that varies within a wide but limited range of values. This implies that there are nonlinear mechanisms that prevent runaway solutions. The purpose of this paper is to propose observable…
Torsional oscillations represent bands of fast and slow zonal flows around the Sun, which extend deep into the convection zone and migrate during solar cycles towards the equator following the sunspot butterfly diagram. Analysis of…
Physics-based solar cycle predictions provide an effective way to verify our understanding of the solar cycle. Before the start of cycle 25, several physics-based solar cycle predictions were developed. These predictions use flux transport…
The peculiar behaviour of the solar cycle 23 and its prolonged minima has been one of the most studied problems over the last few years. In the present paper, we study the asymmetries in active region magnetic flux in the northern and…
A striking feature of the solar cycle is that at the beginning, sunspots appear around mid-latitudes, and over time the latitudes of emergences migrate towards the equator.The maximum level of activity (e.g., sunspot number) varies from…
The magnetic field of the Sun is generated by internal dynamo process with a cyclic period of 11 years or a 22 year magnetic cycle. The signatures of the Sun's magnetic cycle are observed in the different layers of its atmosphere and in its…
The periods of magnetic activity cycles in the Sun and solar-type stars do not exhibit a simple or even single trend with respect to rotation rate or luminosity. Dynamo models can be used to interpret this diversity, and can ultimately help…
Babcock-Leighton process, in which the poloidal field is generated through the decay and dispersal of tilted bipolar magnetic regions (BMRs), is observed to be the major process behind the generating poloidal field in the Sun. Based on this…
Fluctuations in the Sun's magnetic activity, including episodes of grand minima such as the Maunder minimum have important consequences for space and planetary environments. However, the underlying dynamics of such extreme fluctuations…
The butterfly diagram of the solar cycle exhibits a poleward migration of the diffuse magnetic field resulting from the decay of trailing sunspots. It is one component of what is sometimes referred to as the "rush to the poles". We…
A striking feature of the solar cycle is that at the beginning, sunspots appear around mid-latitudes, and over time the latitudes of emergences migrate towards the equator. The maximum level of activity varies from cycle to cycle. For…
We summarize the fifty-year concerted effort to place the "activity" of the Sun in the context of the stars. As a working definition of solar activity in the context of stars, we adopt those globally-observable variations on time scales…
Solar activity is studied using a cluster analysis of the time-fluctuations of the sunspot number. It is shown that in an Historic period the high activity components of the solar cycles exhibit strong clustering, whereas in a Modern period…
The Sun exhibits episodic surges of magnetic activity across a range of temporal and spatial scales, the most prominent of which is the 11-ish year modulation of sunspot production. Beside the ~170 (min to max) decadal variation in sunspot…
Despite investments in multiple space and ground-based solar observatories by the global community, the Sun's polar regions remain unchartered territory - the last great frontier for solar observations. Breaching this frontier is…
Synoptic magnetograms and relevant proxy data were analyzed to study the evolution of the Sun's polar magnetic fields. Time-latitude analysis of large-scale magnetic fields demonstrates cyclic changes in their zonal structure and the…
We propose that grand minima in solar activity are caused by simultaneous fluctuations in the meridional circulation and the Babcock-Leighton mechanism for the poloidal field generation in the flux transport dynamo model. We present the…
The dynamic activity of the Sun, governed by its cycle of sunspots -- strongly magnetized regions that are observed on its surface -- modulate our solar system space environment creating space weather. Severe space weather leads to…
Observations of the meridional circulation of the Sun, which plays a key role in the operation of the solar dynamo, indicate that its speed varies with the solar cycle, becoming faster during the solar minima and slower during the solar…