A Potential New Mechanism for the Butterfly Diagram of the Solar Cycle: Latitude-dependent Radial Flux Transport

TL;DR

This study proposes a new mechanism involving latitude-dependent radial flux transport to explain the solar cycle's butterfly diagram, challenging traditional views based on meridional flow, through data-driven dynamo simulations.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel mechanism for the butterfly diagram based on latitude-dependent radial flux transport, supported by numerical simulations with a Babcock-Leighton dynamo model.

Findings

Radial flux transport speed at high latitudes influences sunspot emergence timing.

The butterfly diagram results from latitude-dependent toroidal field regeneration.

Simulations show earlier cycle onset at higher latitudes with faster radial transport.

Abstract

The butterfly diagram of the solar cycle is the equatorward migration of the emergence latitudes of sunspots as the solar cycle evolves. Revealing the mechanism for the butterfly diagram is essential for understanding the solar and stellar dynamo. The equatorward meridional flow at the base of the convection zone (CZ) was believed to be responsible for the butterfly diagram. However, helioseismological studies indicate controversial forms of the flow, and even present poleward flow at the base of the CZ, which poses a big challenge to the widely accepted mechanism. This motivates us to propose a new mechanism in this study. Using a data-driven Babcock-Leighton-type dynamo model, we carry out numerical simulations to explore how the latitude-dependent radial flux transport affects the latitudinal migration of the toroidal field, under different meridional flow profiles. The results indicate that when the radial transport of the poloidal field at higher latitudes is sufficiently faster, the toroidal fields of a new cycle at higher latitudes are generated earlier than that at lower latitudes, and vice versa. Thus, the butterfly diagram is suggested to correspond to the time- and latitude-dependent regeneration of the toroidal field due to the latitude-dependent radial transport of the poloidal flux.