The Kodaikanal Archive Program (India) is now available to the scientific community in digital form as daily digitized solar white light pictures, from 1923 to 2011. We present here the solar radius data, obtained after a painstaking effort to remove all effects that contribute to the error in their measurements (limb darkening, distortion of the objective lens, refraction, other instrumental effects, etc.). These data were analyzed to reveal any significant periodic variations, after applying a multi-taper method with red noise approximation and the Morlet wavelet transform analysis. After removing obvious periodic variations (such as solar rotation and Earth annual rotation), we found a possible cycle variation at 11.4 yr, quasi biennial oscillations at 1.5 and 3.8 yr, and Rieger-type periodicity at ~159, 91, and 63 days. Another ~7.5 yr periodicity (as a mean) resulting from two other main periodicities detected at 6.3-7.8 yr can be identified as an atmospheric component. The detrending data show, over a mean radius of 959".7 +/- 0".7, a residual of less than ~(-)1 mas over the time period of analysis: if not spurious, this estimate indicates a faint decline, but probably confirms more the constancy of the solar diameter during the considered ranging time, within instrumental and methodological limits. The Kodaikanal long quality observations contribute to international efforts to bring past solar data measurements to the community to further explore issues, for instance, those of the luminosity/radius properties that could be used to pinpoint the "seat of the solar cycle."
Advances in understanding of the white light faculae measured at the Royal Greenwich Observatory from 1874 to 1976 suggest that they offer a more direct measure of solar brightening by small diameter photospheric magnetic flux tubes than do chromospheric proxies. Proxies such as the area of Ca K plages, the Mg index or the microwave flux include many dark photospheric structures as well as pores and sunspots. Our reconstruction of variation in total solar irradiance,TSI,based on the faculae indicates that the sun dimmed by almost 0.1 percent in the mid- twentieth century rather than brightenin…
Reconstructions of total solar irradiance (TSI) rely mainly on linear relations between TSI variation and indices of facular area. When these are extrapolated to the prolonged 15th - 17th century Spörer and Maunder solar activity minima, the estimated solar dimming is insufficient to explain the mid- millennial climate cooling of the Little Ice Age. We draw attention here to evidence that the relation departs from linearity at the lowest activity levels. Imaging photometry and radiometry indicate an increased TSI contribution per unit area from small network faculae by a factor of 2-4 compared…
The rotational profile of the Sun is considered to be one of the key inputs in a solar dynamo model. Hence, precise and long-term measurements of this quantity is important for our understanding of solar magnetism and its variability. In this study, we use the newly digitized, white light sunspot data (1923 -- 2011) from Kodaikanal Solar Observatory (KoSO) to derive the solar rotation profile. An automated correlation based sunspot tracking algorithm is implemented to measure the rotation parameters, $A$, the equatorial rotation rate and $B$, the latitudinal gradient. Our measurements of $A=14…
Algebraic Quantification of the Contribution of Active Regions to the Sun's Dipole Moment: Applications to Century-scale Polar Field Estimates and Solar Cycle Forecasting
Because of the lack of reliable sunspot observation, the quality of sunspot number series is poor in the late 18th century, leading to the abnormally long solar cycle (1784--1799) before the Dalton minimum. Using the newly recovered solar drawings by the 18--19th century observers Staudacher and Hamilton, we construct the solar butterfly diagram, i.e. the latitudinal distribution of sunspots in the 1790's. The sudden, systematic occurrence of sunspots at high solar latitudes in 1793--1796 unambiguously shows that a new cycle started in 1793, which was lost in traditional Wolf's sunspot series.…
Guy Boistel questions the Sun / variable stars analogy at the heart of the work of Dutch astronomer Albert Brester. The problem of interdisciplinarity appears in the objectification of the Sun at the end of the 19th century: it is by mixing astronomy, physics and chemistry that Brester tried to apply knowledge of the solar atmosphere to the understanding of variable stars, a fairly confidential field of study still at that time.
Extending the knowledge about the properties of solar cycles into the past is essential for understanding the solar dynamo. This paper aims at estimating areas of sunspots observed by Schwabe in 1825-1867 and at calculating the tilt angles of sunspot groups. The sunspot sizes in Schwabe's drawings are not to scale and need to be converted into physical sunspot areas. We employed a statistical approach assuming that the area distribution of sunspots was the same in the 19th century as it was in the 20th century. Umbral areas for about 130,000 sunspots observed by Schwabe were obtained, as well …
The total solar fluxes at 1, 2, 3.75, and 9.4 GHz were observed continuously from 1957 to 1994 at Toyokawa, and from 1994 until now at Nobeyama, Japan with the current Nobeyama Radio Polarimeters. We examined the multi-frequency and long-term datasets, and found that not only the microwave solar flux but also its monthly standard deviation well indicates the long-term variation of solar activity. Furthermore, we found that the microwave spectra at the solar minima of Cycle 20~24 agree with each other. These results show that the average atmospheric structure above the upper chromosphere in the…
The solar cycle and its associated magnetic activity are the main drivers behind changes in the interplanetary environment and the Earth's upper atmosphere (commonly referred to as space weather). These changes have a direct impact on the lifetime of space-based assets and can create hazards to astronauts in space. In recent years there has been an effort to develop accurate solar cycle predictions (with aims at predicting the long-term evolution of space weather), leading to nearly a hundred widely spread predictions for the amplitude of solar cycle 24. A major contributor to the disagreement…
Our knowledge of the long-term evolution of solar activity and of its primary modulation, the 11-year cycle, largely depends on a single direct observational record: the visual sunspot counts that retrace the last 4 centuries, since the invention of the astronomical telescope. Currently, this activity index is available in two main forms: the International Sunspot Number initiated by R. Wolf in 1849 and the Group Number constructed more recently by Hoyt and Schatten (1998a,b). Unfortunately, those two series do not match by various aspects, inducing confusions and contradictions when used in c…
We review some major, open issues in the current modelling of low and intermediate mass, main sequence stars based on seismological studies. In the present paper, the solar case is discussed together with current problems that are common to the Sun and stars with a structure similar to that of the Sun. Several additional issues specific to main sequence stars other than the Sun are reviewed and illustrated with a few stars observed with CoRoT in a companion paper.
In the earlier analysis of Ca-K spectroheliograms obtained at Kodaikanal Observatory, the "Good" images were used to investigate variations in the chromosphere. Still, the contrast of the images varied on a day-to-day basis. We developed a new methodology to generate images to form a uniform time series. We adjusted each image's contrast until the FWHM of the normalized intensity distribution attained a value between 0.10 and 0.11. This methodology of the "Equal Contrast technique" is expected to compensate for the change of emulsion, development, contrast of the images due to centering of Ca-…
The analysis of the observations of solar activity indexes SSN (NOAA Sunspot Numbers), the radio flux at a wavelength of 10.7 cm (F10.7) and the solar constant (TSI) during the cycles 22 - 24 is presented. We found a decrease of the observed values of the SSNobs which was calculated with SSNsyn (using regression relationships between SSN and F10.7) after 1990 year on 20 - 25% instead of 35%, as was previously assumed. The changes in characteristics of the most popular index, SSN, such as decrease in the number of sunspots, the reduction of the magnetic field in small and medium-sized spots are…
The solar activity in the current, that is, the 24-th, sunspot cycle is analyzed. Cyclic variations in the sunspot number (SSN) and radiation fluxes in various spectral ranges have been estimated in comparison with the general level of the solar radiation, which is traditionally determined by the radio emission flux $F_ {10.7} $ at a wavelength of 10.7 cm (2.8 GHz). The comparative analysis of the variations in the solar constant and solar indices in the UV range, which are important for modeling the state of the Earth's atmosphere, in the weak 24th cycle and strong 22nd and 23rd cycles showed…
Elements with low First Ionization Potential (FIP) are known to be three to four times more abundant in active region loops of the solar corona than in the photosphere. There have been observations suggesting that this observed "FIP bias" may be different in other parts of the solar corona and such observations are thus important in understanding the underlying mechanism. The Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM) on board the Chandrayaan-2 mission carried out spectroscopic observations of the Sun in soft X-rays during the 2019-20 solar minimum, considered to be the quietest solar minimum of the past centu…
Solar flares, with energies ranging over several orders of magnitude, result from impulsive release of energy due to magnetic reconnection in the corona. Barring a handful, almost all microflares observed in X-rays are associated with the solar active regions. Here we present, for the first time, a comprehensive analysis of a large sample of quiet Sun microflares observed in soft X-rays by the Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM) on board the Chandrayaan-2 mission during the 2019-20 solar minimum. A total of 98 microflares having peak flux below GOES A-level were observed by the XSM during observations s…
Hand-drawn synoptic maps from the Meudon Observatory (1919 onwards) and the McIntosh archive (1967 onwards) are two important sources of long-term, manually recorded filament observations. In this study, we calibrate the Meudon maps and subsequently identify filaments through an automated method. We extract physical parameters from this filament database and perform a comparative study of their long-term evolution focusing on the cotemporal period of McIntosh and Meudon observations. The spatio-temporal evolution of filaments manifests in the form of a filament butterfly diagram, indicating fu…
The century-long (1907-2007) Ca II K spectroheliograms from Kodaikanal Solar Observatory (KSO) are calibrated, processed and analysed in the present study to follow the evolution of bright on disc structures called plages, the possible representatives of magnetic activity on the Sun. This has been the longest dataset studied in Ca II K till date covering about 9.5 cycles of 11 year periods. Plages were segmented with area $\geq 1\:\textrm {arcmin}^2$ using global thresholds for individual full disc images and subsequent application of morphological closing operation. Plage index was calculated…
R. C. Carrington, C. H. F. Peters, and W. de la Rue observed the sunspots in the second half of the 19th century, determining their heliographic positions between 1853 and 1870, before the establishment of the solar program of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. The large tables of sunspot positions included in the catalogues published by these observers have recently been converted to a machine readable format. The present work analyses this data by calculating the sunspot group velocities for each observer. These results are then fitted with a differential rotation law to compare the data of th…
The professional literature provides one means to review the evolution and geographic distribution of the scientific communities engaged in solar and heliospheric physics. With help of the Astrophysics Data System (NASA/ADS), I trace the growth of the research community over the past century from a few dozen researchers early in the 20-th Century to over 4,000 names with over refereed 2,000 publications in recent years, with 90% originating from 20 countries, being published in 90 distinct journals. Overall, the lead authors of these publications have their affiliations for 45% in Europe, 29% …
Sunspot positions from various historical sets of solar drawings are analysed with respect to the tilt angles of bipolar sunspot groups. Data by Scheiner, Hevelius, Staudacher, Zucconi, Schwabe, and Spoerer deliver a series of average tilt angles spanning a period of 270 years, additional to previously found values for 20th-century data obtained by other authors. We find that the average tilt angles before the Maunder minimum were not significantly different from the modern values. However, the average tilt angles of a period 50 years after the Maunder minimum, namely for cycles 0 and 1, were …
The sunspot drawings of Johann Staudacher of 1749--1799 were used to determine the solar differential rotation in that period. These drawings of the full disk lack any indication of their orientation. We used a Bayesian estimator to obtain the position angles of the drawings, the corresponding heliographic spot positions, a time offset between the drawings and the differential rotation parameter δΩ, assuming the equatorial rotation period is the same as today. The drawings are grouped in pairs, and the resulting marginal distributions for δΩwere multiplied. We obtain δΩ=-0.048 \pm 0.025 d^-1 (…
We identify several pairs of 'equivalent' observers defined as observers with equal or nearly equal 'observational threshold' areas of sunspots on the solar disk as determined by the 'Active Days Fraction' method [e.g. Willamo et al., 2017]. For such pairs of observers, the ADF-method would be expected to map the actually observed sunspot group numbers for the individual observers to two reconstructed series that are very nearly equal and (it is claimed) represent 'real' solar activity without arbitrary choices and deleterious, error-accumulating 'daisy-chaining'. We show that this goal has no…
The sunspot position from Greenwich Photoheliographic Results (GPR), US Air Force Solar Optical Observing Network and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (USAF/NOAA), and Debrecen Photoheliographic Data (DPD) data bases in the period 1874 to 2016 were used to calculate yearly values of the solar differential-rotation parameters $A$ and $B$. The calculated differential-rotation parameters were compared with the solar-activity level. We found that the Sun rotates more differentially at the minimum than at the maximum of activity during the 1977 - 2016 epoch. An inverse correlation be…
The Sun's activity cycle governs the radiation, particle and magnetic flux in the heliosphere creating hazardous space weather. Decadal-scale variations define space climate and force the Earth's atmosphere. However, predicting the solar cycle is challenging. Current understanding indicates a short window for prediction best achieved at previous cycle minima. Utilizing magnetic field evolution models for the Sun's surface and interior we perform the first century-scale, data-driven simulations of solar activity and present a scheme for extending the prediction window to a decade. Our ensemble …
Henri Deslandres initiated imaging spectroscopy of the solar atmosphere in 1892 at Paris observatory. He invented, concurrently with George Hale in Kenwood (USA) but quite independently, the spectroheliograph designed for monochromatic imagery of the Sun. Deslandres developed two kinds of spectrographs: the ''spectroh{é}liographe des formes'', i.e. the narrow bandpass instrument to reveal chromospheric structures (such as filaments, prominences, plages and active regions); and the ''spectroh{é}liographe des vitesses'', i.e. the ''section'' spectroheliograph to record line profiles of cross sec…
The importance of the periodicity in sunspot appearance was well recognized by the mid of 19th century. Several observatories around the globe have made the record of sunspots in the form of drawings and preserved them safely for posterity. At the Kodaikanal Observatory (KO), the sunspot observations have begun in 1905. In those times observations were recorded on photographic plates and after the development of those plates in the laboratory, the drawings of the same were made on the Stonyhurst grids. In these drawings, called {\em sun charts}, different features on the sun's disk, e.g., suns…
In the 70s of the last century, the stratospheric solar observatory "Saturn" with a 100cm telescope was launched at Pulkovo Observatory. The photographs and spectra obtained on it for more than 45 years remained record-breaking in angular resolution. Then, for ground-based observations of Sun fine structure in Pamir at an altitude of 4.5 km, a 50 cm open-type Pulkovo mobile telescope was installed. Photographs and spectra obtained with the Saturn telescope for the visible range were an important step in the development of high spatial resolution technologies in heliophysics. However, to date, …
Discovery of a relation between the decay rate of the Sun's magnetic dipole and the growth rate of the following sunspot cycle: a new precursor for solar cycle prediction
We benchmark new atomic data against a selection of irradiances obtained from medium-resolution quiet Sun spectra in the EUV, from 60 to 1040 Å. We use as a baseline the irradiances measured during solar minimum on 2008 April 14 by the prototype (PEVE) of the Solar Dynamics Observatory Extreme ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE). We take into account some inconsistencies in the PEVE data, using flight EVE data and irradiances we obtained from Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SoHO) Coronal Diagnostics Spectrometer (CDS) data. We perform a differential emission measure and find overall exc…
The solar cycle periodically reshapes the magnetic structure and radiative output of the Sun and determines its impact on the heliosphere roughly every 11 years. Besides this main periodicity, it shows century-long variations (including periods of abnormally low solar activity called grand minima). The Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) has generated significant interest as the archetype of a grand minimum in magnetic activity for the Sun and other stars, suggesting a potential link between the Sun and changes in terrestrial climate. Recent reanalyses of sunspot observations have yielded a conflicted…
The spatial and temporal distributions of solar filaments were analyzed using data from the Meudon Observatory for the period 1919-2003 and the Kislovodsk Mountain Astronomical Station for the period 1979-2014. We scanned $H_α$ solar synoptic charts on which the filaments were isolated and digitized. The data on each filament comprise its location, length, area, and other geometrical characteristics. The temporal distributions of the number and total length of the filaments have been obtained. We also found latitudinal migration of filament locations with the solar cycle, and analyzed the long…
Kodaikanal Solar Observatory (KoSO) possesses one of world's longest and homogeneous records of sunspot observations that span more than a century (1904-2017). Interestingly, these observations (originally recorded in photographic plates/films) were taken with the same setup over this entire time period which makes this data unique and best suitable for long-term solar variability studies. A large part of this data, between 1921-2011, were digitized earlier and a catalog containing the detected sunspot parameters (e.g., area and location) was published in Mandal et al.(2017). In this article, …
Strongly Doppler-shifted Stokes $V$ profiles have been detected in the quiet Sun with the IMaX instrument on-board the SUNRISE stratospheric balloon-borne telescope. High velocities are required in order to produce such signals, hence these events have been interpreted as jets, although other sources are also possible. We aim to characterize the variation of the main properties of these events (occurrence rate, lifetime, size and velocities) with their position on the solar disk between disk centre and the solar limb. These events have been identified in Sunrise/IMaX data according to the same…
During the last century, with the development of modern physics in such diverse fields as thermodynamics, statistical physics, and nuclear and particle physics, the basic principles of the evolution of stars have been successfully well understood. Nowadays, a precise diagnostic of the stellar interiors is possible with the new fields of helioseismology and astroseismology. Even the measurement of solar neutrino fluxes, once a problem in particle physics, is now a powerful probe of the core of the Sun. These tools have allowed the use of stars to test new physics, in particular the properties o…
Long-term records of sunspot number and concentrations of cosmogenic radionuclides (10Be and 14C) on the Earth reveal the variation of the Sun's magnetic activity over hundreds and thousands of years. We identify several clear periods in sunspot, 10Be, and 14C data as 1000, 500, 350, 200 and 100 years. We found that the periods of the first five spherical harmonics of the slow magnetic Rossby mode in the presence of a steady toroidal magnetic field of 1200-1300 G in the lower tachocline are in perfect agreement with the time scales of observed variations. The steady toroidal magnetic field can…
The Sun has a polar magnetic field which oscillates with the 11 year sunspot cycle. This polar magnetic field is an important component of the dynamo process which is operating in the solar convection zone and produces the sunspot cycle. We have systematic direct measurements of the Sun's polar magnetic field only from about mid 1970s. There are, however, indirect proxies which give us information about this field at earlier times. The Ca K spectroheliograms taken in Kodaikanal Solar Observatory during 1904 - 2007 have now been digitized with the 4k x 4k CCD and have higher resolution (0.86 ar…
The Sun provides the energy necessary to sustain our existence. While the Sun provides for us, it is also capable of taking away. The weather and climatic scales of solar evolution and the Sun-Earth connection are not well understood. There has been tremendous progress in the century since the discovery of solar magnetism - magnetism that ultimately drives the electromagnetic, particulate and eruptive forcing of our planetary system. There is contemporary evidence of a decrease in solar magnetism, perhaps even indicators of a significant downward trend, over recent decades. Are we entering a m…
Nature of Transonic Sub-Alfvénic Turbulence and Density Fluctuations in the Near-Sun Solar Wind: Insights from Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations and Nearly-Incompressible Models
University of Wisconsin-Madison（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校）；Los Alamos National Laboratory（洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室）；University of Alabama in Huntsville（阿拉巴马大学亨茨维尔分校）；Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research (CSPAR)（空间等离子体与航空研究发展中心）
Although sunspots have been systematically observed on the Sun's surface over the last four centuries, their magnetic properties have been revealed and documented only since the early 1900s. Sunspots typically appear in pairs of opposite magnetic polarities which have a systematic orientation. This polarity orientation is opposite across the equator -- a trend that has persisted over the last century over which magnetic field observations exist. Taken together with the configuration of the global poloidal field of the Sun -- that governs the heliospheric open flux and cosmic ray flux at Earth …
Magnetic activity of the Sun and other stars causes their brightness to vary. We investigate how typical the Sun's variability is compared to other solar-like stars, i.e. those with near-solar effective temperatures and rotation periods. By combining four years of photometric observations from the Kepler space telescope with astrometric data from the Gaia spacecraft, we measure photometric variabilities of 369 solar-like stars. Most of the solar-like stars with well-determined rotation periods show higher variability than the Sun and are therefore considerably more active. These stars appear n…
Studies with GONG Standard Solar Evolution Models sampling the evolution of the sun from its ZAMS stage show the following. The location of the tachocline zone is nearly fixed as it is not affected by shell burning although it co-moves with the expansion of the sun up to the present age of 4.6 Gyr. The luminosity transport time scale of the sun is entirely dominated by photon diffusion and during the evolution has decreased from over 204000 years to 187000 years. The rotational inertia of the sun shows a small gradual increase from 6.73x10^46 kg m^2 to 7.09x10^46 kg m^2 at present but the iner…
By using the unique database of SOHO/MDI full disk magnetograms from 1996 September to 2011 January, covering the entire solar cycle 23, we analyze the time-variability of the solar magnetic flux spectrum and study the properties of extended minimum of cycle 23. We totally identify 11.5 million magnetic structures. It has been revealed that magnetic features with different magnetic fluxes exhibit different cycle behaviors. The magnetic features with flux larger than $4.0 \times 10^{19}$ Mx, which cover solar active regions and strong network features, show exactly the same variation as sunspot…
Supergranulation is a fluid-dynamical phenomenon taking place in the solar photosphere, primarily detected in the form of a vigorous cellular flow pattern with a typical horizontal scale of approximately 30--35~megameters, a dynamical evolution time of 24--48~h, a strong 300--400~m/s (rms) horizontal flow component and a much weaker 20--30~m/s vertical component. Supergranulation was discovered more than sixty years ago, however, explaining its physical origin and most important observational characteristics has proven extremely challenging ever since, as a result of the intrinsic multiscale, …
The subject of this paper is the existence and stability of solar cycles with durations in the range of 20-250 years. Five types of data series are used: 1) The Zurich series (1749-2009 AD), the mean annual International sunspot number Ri, 2) The Group sunspot number series Rh (1610-1995 AD), 3) The simulated extended sunspot Rsi number from Extended time series of Solar Activity Indices (ESAI) (1090-2002 AD), 4) The simulated extended geomagnetic aa-index from ESAI (1099-2002 AD), 5) The Meudon filament series (1919-1991 AD) (it is used only particularly). Data series are smoothed over 11 yea…
The subject of this paper is the existence and stability of solar cycles with duration in the range of 20-250 years. Five type of data series are used: 1) The Zurich series (1749-2009), the mean annual International sunspot number Ri; 2) The Group sunspot number series Rh (1610-1995); 3) The simulated extended sunspot Rsi number from Extended time series of Solar Activity Indices (ESAI) (1090- 2002); 4) The simulated extended geomagnetic aa-index from ESAI (1099-2002); 5) The Meudon filament series (1919-1991) (it is used only particularly). Data series are smoothed over 11 years and supercent…
Sunspot numbers are important tracers of historical solar activity. They are important in the prediction of oncoming solar maximum, in the design of lifetimes of space assets, and in assessing the extent of solar-radiation impact on the space environment. Sunspot numbers were obtained visually from sunspot drawings. The availability of digital images from the US Air Force Improved Solar Optical Observing Network (ISOON) prototype telescope concurrent to observer-dependent sunspot numbers recorded at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) has provided a basis for comparing sunspot numbers determi…
More than 635 000 positional observations (mostly radiotechnical) of planets and spacecraft (1961-2010), have been used for estimating possible changes of the gravitation constant, the solar mass, and semi-major axes of planets, as well as the value of the astronomical unit, related to them. The analysis of the observations has been performed on the basis of the EPM2010 ephemerides of IAA RAS in post-newtonian approximation. The obtained results indicate on decrease in the heliocentric gravitation constant per year at the level $ \dot {GM_{Sun}}/GM_{Sun} = (-5.0 \pm 4.1) 10^{-14} (3σ).$ The po…
With over 100 years of solar observations, the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory (KoSO) is a one-of-a-kind solar data repository in the world. Among its many data catalogues, the `suncharts' at KoSO are of particular interest. These Suncharts (1904-2020) are coloured drawings of different solar features, such as sunspots, plages, filaments, and prominences, made on papers with a Stonyhurst latitude-longitude grid etched on them. In this paper, we analyze this unique data by first digitizing each suncharts using an industry-standard scanner and saving those digital images in high-resolution `.tif' f…
Solar activity is an important driver of long-term climate trends and must be accounted for in climate models. Unfortunately, direct measurements of this quantity over long periods do not exist. The only observation related to solar activity whose records reach back to the seventeenth century are sunspots. Surprisingly, determining the number of sunspots consistently over time has remained until today a challenging statistical problem. It arises from the need of consolidating data from multiple observing stations around the world in a context of low signal-to-noise ratios, non-stationarity, mi…
