Does the butterfly diagram indicate a solar flux-transport dynamo?

Free access article

Issue		A&A Volume 421, Number 1, July I 2004


Page(s)		349 - 351
Section		The Sun
DOI		http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20041302-1

A&A 421, 349-351 (2004)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20041302

Does the butterfly diagram indicate a solar flux-transport dynamo?

M. Schüssler and D. Schmitt

Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung (Formerly: Max-Planck-Institut für Aeronomie.) , Max-Planck-Str. 2, 37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany
e-mail: [schuessler,schmitt]@linmpi.mpg.de

(Received 26 February 2004 / Accepted 17 March 2004 )

Abstract
We address the question whether the properties of the observed latitude-time diagram of sunspot occurrence (the butterfly diagram) provide evidence for the operation of a flux-transport dynamo, which explains the migration of the sunspot zones and the period of the solar cycle in terms of a deep equatorward meridional flow. We show that the properties of the butterfly diagram are equally well reproduced by a conventional dynamo model with migrating dynamo waves, but without transport of magnetic flux by a flow. These properties seem to be generic for an oscillatory and migratory field of dipole parity and thus do not permit an observational distinction between different dynamo approaches.

Key words: magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) -- Sun: activity -- Sun: magnetic fields -- Sun: interior -- Sun: sunspots

Offprint request: M. Schüssler, msch@linmpi.mpg.de

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