Locating Activity Nests of Sunspots in Solar Cycle 24 using Data from the Helioseismic Magnetic Imager
Abstract
Active region nests are locations on the Sun where sunspots repeatedly emerge month after month. Other stars show similar nesting behavior of magnetic activity. The precise physical mechanism that causes nests is unknown but could be an instability acting on the magnetic field in the interior of the Sun or star or could be due to flow fields such as giant convection cells causing preferred locations of magnetic flux emergence. Activity nests host a great majority of solar energetic events and as such, are crucial to our understanding of space weather. We analyze data from the SPEAR (Solar Plage, Ephemeral and Active Region) Catalogue created from Spaceweather HMI Active Region Patch (SHARP) data. We identify the nest locations in each hemisphere during Solar Cycle 24, and record the average lifetime, number of sunspots and rotation rate of each nest, see figure in which sunspots associated with unique nests are shown grouped by color and plotted as a function of longitude and Carrington rotation number. The percentage of sunspots and magnetic flux contained in the nests is higher than previously reported. This research is supported by the NSF ASSURE REU program operated through UC Berkeley Space Sciences Lab and by NASA Grant 80NSSC20K0602 to Stanford University and beneficial interactions with the COFFIES team.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2021
- Bibcode:
- 2021AGUFMSH55D1877M