9–13 Mar 2015
Albanova, Stockholm
Europe/Stockholm timezone

One Model Doesn't Fit All: Recent Results of a Detailed Analysis of Sunspot Demographics

9 Mar 2015, 14:30
40m
Oskar Klein Auditorium (Albanova, Stockholm)

Oskar Klein Auditorium

Albanova, Stockholm

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.

Presentation materials