Simulation Study of Hemispheric Phase-Asymmetry in the Solar Cycle

Abstract

Observations of the sun suggest that solar activities systematically create north-south hemispheric asymmetries. For instance, the hemisphere in which the sunspot activity is more active tends to switch after the early half of each solar cycle. Svalgaard & Kamide (2013) recently pointed out that the time gaps of polar field reversal between the north and south hemispheres are simply consequences of the asymmetry of sunspot activity. However, the mechanism underlying the asymmetric feature in solar cycle activities is not yet well understood. In this paper, in order to explain the cause of the asymmetry from the theoretical point of view, we investigate the relationship between the dipole- and quadrupole-type components of the magnetic field in the solar cycle using the mean-field theory based on the flux transport dynamo model. As a result, we found that there are two different attractors of the solar cycle, in which either the north or the south polar field is first reversed, and that the flux transport dynamo model well explains the phase-asymmetry of sunspot activity and the polar field reversal without any ad hoc source of asymmetry.

References in corpus (5)

• Exploring the Physical Basis of Solar Cycle Predictions: Flux Transport Dynamics and Persistence of Memory in Advection versus Diffusion Dominated Solar Convection Zones
• A Solar Dynamo Model Driven by Mean-Field Alpha and Babcock-Leighton Sources: Fluctuations, Grand-Minima-Maxima and Hemispheric Asymmetry in Sunspot Cycles
• Grand Minima and North-South Asymmetry of Solar Activity
• Phase lags of solar hemispheric cycles
• Observations and modelling of North-South asymmetries using a Flux Transport Dynamo

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• Can the long-term hemispheric asymmetry of solar activity result from fluctuations in dynamo parameters?
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• Hemispheric analysis of the magnetic flux in regular and irregular solar active regions
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