Sunspot tilt angles revisited: Dependence on the solar cycle strength

TL;DR

This study investigates the relationship between sunspot group tilt angles and solar cycle strength, finding that the tilt coefficient is anti-correlated with cycle strength when using a refined analysis method, clarifying previous controversies.

Contribution

It introduces a robust method for analyzing tilt angles that reduces scatter effects, demonstrating a significant anti-correlation with cycle strength and resolving conflicting prior results.

Findings

Tilt angles show wide scatter due to measurement errors and intrinsic variability.

Different analysis methods influence the statistical significance of tilt cycle correlations.

Using a linear fit without binning reveals a strong anti-correlation between tilt coefficient and cycle strength.

Abstract

The tilt angle of sunspot groups is crucial in the BL type dynamo. Some studies have shown that the tilt coefficient is anti-correlated with the cycle strength. If the anti-correlation exists, it will be shown to act as an effective nonlinearity of the BL-type dynamo to modulate the solar cycle. However, some studies have shown that the anti-correlation has no statistical significance. We aim to investigate the causes behind the controversial results of tilt angle studies and to establish whether the tilt coefficient is indeed anti-correlated with the cycle strength. We first analyzed the tilt angles from DPD. Based on the methods applied in previous studies, we took two criteria to select the data, along with the linear and square-root functions to describe Joy's law, and three methods to derive the tilt coefficients for cycles 21-24. This allowed us to evaluate different methods based on comparisons of the differences among the tilt coefficients and the tilt coefficient uncertainties. Then we utilized Monte Carlo experiments to verify the results. Finally, we extended these methods to analyze the separate hemispheric DPD data and the tilt angle data from Kodaikanal and Mount Wilson. The tilt angles exhibit an extremely wide scatter due to both the intrinsic mechanism for its generation and measurement errors, for instance, the unipolar regions included in data sets. Different methods to deal with the uncertainties are mainly responsible for the controversial character of the previous results. The linear fit to the tilt-latitude relation of sunspot groups with $\Delta s>2.5$ of a cycle carried out without binning the data can minimize the effect of the tilt scatter on the uncertainty of the tilt coefficient. Based on this method the tilt angle coefficient is anti-correlated with the cycle strength with strong statistical significance.