The relationship between grouped solar flares and sunspot activity

Song Feng 1,2, Lan Yu 3 and Yunfei Yang 1
11Yunnan Key Laboratory of Computer Technology Application / Faculty of Information Engineering and Automation, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, P. R. China
2Key Laboratory of Solar Activity, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100012, P. R. China
3Department of Information Engineering, Yunnan Land and Resources Vocational College, Kunming 650217, P. R. China
Received: 28 July 2013 | Accepted: 27 December 2013

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Abstract

We investigate the phase relationship between grouped solar flares (GSFs) and sunspot numbers (SNs) during the time interval from 1965 January to 2008 June. It is found that, (1) from a global point of view, GSFs lead SNs in phase during solar cycles 20, 22 & 23, while the former lags behind the latter in solar cycle 21; (2) the phase relationship between them is not only time-dependent but also frequencydependent. This implies that their relationship is a complex nonlinear relationship, although they are highly correlated with each other.

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Keywords : Sun: flares - Sun: sunspots - Sun: magnetic fields - methods: data analysis - methods: statistical