Long-term variation in the Sun's activity caused by magnetic Rossby waves in the tachocline

Abstract

Long-term records of sunspot number and concentrations of cosmogenic radionuclides (10Be and 14C) on the Earth reveal the variation of the Sun's magnetic activity over hundreds and thousands of years. We identify several clear periods in sunspot, 10Be, and 14C data as 1000, 500, 350, 200 and 100 years. We found that the periods of the first five spherical harmonics of the slow magnetic Rossby mode in the presence of a steady toroidal magnetic field of 1200-1300 G in the lower tachocline are in perfect agreement with the time scales of observed variations. The steady toroidal magnetic field can be generated in the lower tachocline either due to the steady dynamo magnetic field for low magnetic diffusivity or due to the action of the latitudinal differential rotation on the weak poloidal primordial magnetic field, which penetrates from the radiative interior. The slow magnetic Rossby waves lead to variations of the steady toroidal magnetic field in the lower tachocline, which modulate the dynamo magnetic field and consequently the solar cycle strength. This result constitutes a key point for long-term prediction of the cycle strength. According to our model, the next deep minimum in solar activity is expected during the first half of this century.

4 pages, 4 figures, accepted in ApJL

References in corpus (1)

• Rossby waves in "shallow water" magnetohydrodynamics

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Period spacings of $\gamma$ Doradus pulsators in the \textit{Kepler} field: Rossby and gravity modes in 82 stars
• North-south asymmetry in Rieger-type periodicity during solar cycles 19-23
• Magneto-Rossby waves in the solar tachocline and the annual variations in solar activity
• Solar-Cycle Characteristics in Kodaikanal Sunspot Area: North--South Asymmetry, Phase Distribution and Gnevyshev Gap
• A spectral solver for solar inertial waves
• Tidally Forced Planetary Waves in the Tachocline of Solar-like Stars
• Convectively coupled equatorial trapped waves in stars and planets
• Two-dimensional ideal magnetohydrodynamic waves on a rotating sphere under a non-Malkus field: I. Continuous spectrum and its ray-theoretical interpretation