Tilt Angles of Solar Filaments over the Period 1919-2014

Abstract

The spatial and temporal distributions of solar filaments were analyzed using data from the Meudon Observatory for the period 1919-2003 and the Kislovodsk Mountain Astronomical Station for the period 1979-2014. We scanned $H_{\alpha }$ solar synoptic charts on which the filaments were isolated and digitized. The data on each filament comprise its location, length, area, and other geometrical characteristics. The temporal distributions of the number and total length of the filaments have been obtained. We also found latitudinal migration of filament locations with the solar cycle, and analyzed the longitudinal distribution and asymmetry of filaments in the northern and southern hemispheres, and other properties of their distribution. The tilt angles of filaments with respect the solar equator ($\tau$) were analyzed. On average, the eastern tips of filaments are closer to the poles than the western ones ($\tau \sim 10^{\circ }$). On the other hand, the filaments in the polar regions ($\theta >50^{\circ }$, where $\theta$ is the latitude) usually have negative tilts ($\tau <0^{\circ }$). The tilt angles vary with the phases of the 11 year sunspot cycle and are at their highest values in the epoch of the activity maximum. In the century-long modulation of the solar activity (Gleissberg cycle), the mean tilt angles of filaments in the mid-latitude zone ($\theta \sim \pm 40^{\circ }$) were maximum in the middle of the 20th century in solar sunspot cycles 18-19. We hereby propose using the statistical properties of solar filaments as an additional coherent measure of manifestation of the solar cycle which covers all latitudes and for which almost a century long systematically calibrated data series is available.

10 pages, 13 figures

References in corpus (3)

• A new dynamo pattern revealed by the tilt angle of bipolar sunspot groups
• Development of an Advanced Automated Method for Solar Filament Recognition and Its Scientific Application to a Solar Cycle of MLSO Hα Data
• Properties of Magnetic Neutral Line Gradients and Formation of Filaments

Cited by in corpus (11)

• What the sudden death of solar cycles can tell us about the nature of the solar interior
• Deciphering Solar Magnetic Activity: 140 Years Of The `Extended Solar Cycle' -- Mapping the Hale Cycle
• Long term study of the solar filaments from the Synoptic Maps as derived from $H_{\alpha }$ Spectroheliograms of Kodaikanal Observatory
• The Association of Filaments, Polarity Inversion Lines, and Coronal Hole Properties with the Sunspot Cycle: An Analysis of the McIntosh Database
• Collective Study of Polar Crown Filaments in the Past Four Solar Cycles
• Time-Latitude Distribution of Prominences for 10 Solar Cycles: A study using Kodaikanal, Meudon and Kanzelhohe Data
• Analysis of full-disc H alpha observations: Carrington maps and filament properties in 1909-2022
• Chromospheric Synoptic Maps of Polar Crown Filaments
• Solar Cycle Evolution of Filaments over a Century: Investigations with the Meudon and McIntosh Hand-drawn Archives
• The Extended Solar Cycle and Asymmetry of the Large-Scale Magnetic Field
• Detection of Solar Filaments using Suncharts from Kodaikanal Solar Observatory Archive Employing a Clustering Approach