Speaker
Andres Munoz-Jaramillo
(Montana State University)
Description
Besides the detailed observation and simulations of
individual sunspots, the statistical analysis of sunspot
populations can provide crucial hints on the mechanisms that
shape magnetism in the photosphere. In this presentation we
will discuss the results of an ongoing statistical analysis
of 11 different sunspot, sunspot group, and bipolar magnetic
region databases. The focus of our work has been a detailed
characterization of the area and flux distributions of
photospheric magnetic structures, and how it is shaped by
the solar cycle. Our results suggest the existence of two
distinct populations of sunspots: a population of groups and
active regions, and second of pores and ephemeral regions.
We find that only the properties of the former population,
the active regions, is found to vary with the solar cycle,
while the statistical properties of pores and ephemeral
regions remain constant in time. In the context of this
workshop, this suggests that perhaps there is not a unique
mechanism that can explain the formation of all sunspots.
