Magneto-Rossby Waves in the Solar Tachocline and the Annual Variations in Solar Activity

Abstract

Abstract Annual oscillations have been detected in many indices of solar activity during many cycles. Recent multi-spacecraft observations of coronal bright points revealed slow retrograde toroidal phase drift (with the speed of ∼3 m s−1) of 1 yr oscillations, which naturally suggested their connection with Rossby-type waves in the interior. We have studied, from a theoretical point of view, the dynamics of global magneto-Kelvin and magneto-Rossby waves in the solar tachocline with toroidal magnetic field. Using spherical coordinates, the dispersion relations of the waves and latitudinal structure of solutions were obtained analytically. We have also obtained the spectrum of unstable magneto-Rossby wave harmonics in the presence of the latitudinal differential rotation. Estimated periods and phase speeds show that the magneto-Rossby waves rather than the Kelvin waves match with the observations of 1 yr oscillations. On the other hand, Morlet wavelet analysis of Greenwich Royal Observatory sunspot areas for the solar cycle 23 has revealed multiple periodicities with periods of 450–460, 370–380, 310–320, 240–270, and 150–175 days in hemispheric and full disk data. Comparison of theoretical results with the observations allow us to conclude that the global magneto-Kelvin waves in the upper overshoot tachocline may be responsible for the periodicity of 450–460 days (∼1.3 yr), while the remaining periods can be connected with different harmonics of global fast magneto-Rossby waves.