The Solar and Heliospheric Obseratory/Michelson Doppler Imager-Debrecen Data (SDD) sunspot catalogue provides an opportunity to study the details and development of sunspot groups on a large statistical sample. The SDD data allow, in particular, the differential study of the leading and following parts with a temporal resolution of 1.5 hours. In this study, we analyse the equilibrium distance of sunspot groups as well as the evolution of this distance over the lifetime of the groups and the shifts in longitude associated with these groups. We also study the asymmetry between the compactness of the leading and following parts, as well as the time-profiles for the development of the area of sunspot groups. A logarithmic relationship has been found between the total area and the distance of leading-following parts of active regions (ARs) at the time of their maximum area. In the developing phase the leading part moves forward; this is more noticeable in larger ARs. The leading part has a higher growth rate than the trailing part in most cases in the developing phase. The growth rates of the sunspot groups depend linearly on their maximum total umbral area. There is an asymmetry in compactness: the number of spots tends to be smaller, while their mean area is larger in the leading part at the maximum phase.
The North-South asymmetry of solar activity is variable in time and strength. We analyse the long-term variation of the phase lags of hemispheric cycles and check a conjectured relationship between these phase lags and the hemispheric cycle strengths. Sunspot data are used from cycles 12-23 in which the separation of northern and southern hemispheres is possible. The centers of mass of the hemispheric cycle profiles were used to study the phase relations and relative strengths of the hemispheric cycles. This approach considers a cycle as a whole and disregards the short-term fluctuations of the cycle time profile. The phase of the hemispheric cycles shows an alternating variation: the northern cycle leads in 4 cycles and follows in 4 cycles. No significant relationship is found between the phase and strength differences of the hemispheric cycles. The period of 4+4 cycles appears to be close to the Gleissberg cycle and may provide a key to its physical background. It may raise a new aspect in the solar dynamo mechanism because it needs a very long memory.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure
The decay of sunspot groups is a relatively unknown field since most studies have focused mainly on the decay of sunspots or sunspot groups, but only on small samples. As an extension of the recent work of Muraközy (2020), which is based on a large verified sample, this study investigates not only the long-term behavior of the decay of sunspot groups but also the dynamics of their parts. The aim of the present work is to search for dependencies of the decay process in order to find physical conditions that modify or contribute to the decay. The investigations are based on the catalog of the SoHO Debrecen Sunspot Database (SDD) and the Greenwich Photoheliographic Results as well as the Debrecen Photoheliographic Data. Altogether more than 750 sunspot groups were considered. The decay rates have been calculated for the total, umbral, and penumbral area of the groups and in the case of the SDD’s groups they have been calculated for both the leading and the following parts. The decay rates depend linearly on the maximum areas and ranged from 30 to 50 millionths of the solar hemisphere (MSH) day−1 for the sunspot groups and penumbrae and 5–10 MSH day−1 for the umbrae throughout the cycle. The decay rates fall significantly during the Gnevyshev gap and show 4 + 4 Schwabe cyclical variations in the ascending/descending phases, but it is always higher in the northern hemisphere. There is a slight decrease in the decay rates in the activity range toward higher latitudes.
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