Babcock Model

The Babcock Model describes a mechanism which can explain magnetic and sunspot patterns observed on the Sun.

Butterfly diagram showing paired sunspot pattern. Graph is sunspot Wolf number.

History

The modern understanding of sunspots starts with George Ellery Hale, who linked magnetic fields and sunspots. Hale suggested that the sunspot cycle period is 22 years, covering two polar reversals of the solar magnetic dipole field.

Horace W. Babcock proposed in 1961 a qualitative model for solar dynamics.[1] On the largest scale, the Sun supports an oscillatory magnetic field, with a quasi-steady periodicity of 22 years.[2][3] This oscillation is known as the Babcock-Leighton dynamo cycle, amounting to the oscillatory exchange of energy between poloidal and toroidal solar magnetic field ingredients.

Babcock-Leighton dynamo cycle

A half dynamo cycle corresponds to a single sunspot solar cycle. At solar maximum, the external poloidal dipolar magnetic field is near its dynamo-cycle minimum strength, but an internal toroidal quadrupolar field, generated through differential rotation,[4] is near its maximum strength. At this point in the dynamo cycle, buoyant upwelling within the convective zone forces emergence of a toroidal magnetic field through the photosphere, giving rise to patches of concentrated magnetic field corresponding to sunspots.

During the solar cycle’s declining phase, energy shifts from the internal toroidal magnetic field to the external poloidal field, and sunspots diminish in number. At solar-cycle minimum, the toroidal field is, correspondingly, at minimum strength, sunspots are few in number, and the poloidal field is at its maximum strength. With the rise of the next 11 year sunspot cycle, magnetic energy shifts back from the poloidal to the toroidal field, but with a polarity that is opposite to the previous cycle. The process carries on continuously, and in an idealized, simplified scenario, each 11 year sunspot cycle corresponds to a change in the overall polarity of the Sun's large-scale magnetic field.[5][6]

References
  1. Babcock, H. W. (March 1961). "The Topology of the Sun's Magnetic Field and the 22-YEAR Cycle". The Astrophysical Journal. 133: 572–587. Bibcode:1961ApJ...133..572B. doi:10.1086/147060. ISSN 0004-637X.
  2. Charbonneau, P. (2014). "Solar Dynamo Theory". Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. 52: 251–290. Bibcode:2014ARA&A..52..251C. doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-081913-040012.
  3. Zirker, J. B. (2002). Journey from the Center of the Sun. Princeton University Press. pp. 119–120. ISBN 978-0-691-05781-1.
  4. Leighton, Robert B. (April 1969). "A Magneto-Kinematic Model of the Solar Cycle". The Astrophysical Journal. 156: 1. Bibcode:1969ApJ...156....1L. doi:10.1086/149943. ISSN 0004-637X.
  5. "Sun flips magnetic field". CNN. 16 February 2001. Archived from the original on 11 August 2013. Retrieved 11 July 2009.
  6. Phillips, T. (15 February 2001). "The Sun Does a Flip". NASA. Archived from the original on 4 November 2001. Retrieved 11 July 2009.
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