The solar benchmark: rotational modulation of the Sun reconstructed from archival sunspot records

We use archival daily spot coverage measurements from Howard et al. to study the rotational modulation of the Sun as though it were a distant star. A quasi-periodic Gaussian process measures the solar rotation period P_rot = 26.3 ± 0.1 d, and activity cycle period P_cyc = 10.7 ± 0.3 yr. We attempt to search for evidence of differential rotation in variations of the apparent rotation period throughout the activity cycle and do not detect a clear signal of differential rotation, consistent with the null results of the hare-and-hounds exercise of Aigrain et al. The full reconstructed solar light curve is available online.