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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0The Astrophysical Journal

Broken Power-law Distributions of Photospheric Magnetic Concentrations and Implications for Solar Dynamo

  • Anchuan Song1
  • Yuming Wang1
  • Quanhao Zhang1,2
  • Jiajia Liu1,2
  • Robert Erdélyi3,4,5
5 affiliations
  1. 1University of Science and Technology of China
  2. 2Collaborative Innovation Center of Astronautical Science and Technology
  3. 3University of Sheffield
  4. 4Hungarian Solar Physics Foundation (HSPF)
  5. 5Eötvös Loránd University
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Abstract

Photospheric magnetic concentrations (MCs) are a direct manifestation of the solar dynamos that govern the solar magnetic field evolution and solar cycles. By studying the magnetic flux, spatial size, and magnetic energy of 2,941,532 MCs during 2011–2022, we find that the appearance rate of MCs fits well to a broken power-law distribution. The power index of small-scale MCs is almost invariant during the solar cycle; however, that of the large-scale MCs is logarithmically related to the sunspot number. These results suggest that small-scale MCs are more susceptible to local dynamical processes, which may weaken their solar cycle dependence and produce more stochastic statistical behavior. In contrast, the statistical properties of large-scale MCs retain a stronger solar cycle modulation, implying that they preserve more of the large-scale magnetic field evolution associated with the solar cycle. The findings provide observational constraints on models of solar magnetic field generation and evolution and offer new insights into the scale-dependent properties of photospheric MCs over the solar cycle.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{song2026broken,
  title = {{Broken Power-law Distributions of Photospheric Magnetic Concentrations and Implications for Solar Dynamo}},
  author = {Anchuan Song and Yuming Wang and Quanhao Zhang and Jiajia Liu and Robert Erdélyi},
  journal = {The Astrophysical Journal},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/aea84f},
  url = {https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aea84f},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Broken Power-law Distributions of Photospheric Magnetic Concentrations and Implications for Solar Dynamo
AU  - Anchuan Song
AU  - Yuming Wang
AU  - Quanhao Zhang
AU  - Jiajia Liu
AU  - Robert Erdélyi
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/19
JO  - The Astrophysical Journal
DO  - 10.3847/1538-4357/aea84f
UR  - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aea84f
AB  - Photospheric magnetic concentrations (MCs) are a direct manifestation of the solar dynamos that govern the solar magnetic field evolution and solar cycles. By studying the magnetic flux, spatial size, and magnetic energy of 2,941,532 MCs during 2011–2022, we find that the appearance rate of MCs fits well to a broken power-law distribution. The power index of small-scale MCs is almost invariant during the solar cycle; however, that of the large-scale MCs is logarithmically related to the sunspot number. These results suggest that small-scale MCs are more susceptible to local dynamical processes, which may weaken their solar cycle dependence and produce more stochastic statistical behavior. In contrast, the statistical properties of large-scale MCs retain a stronger solar cycle modulation, implying that they preserve more of the large-scale magnetic field evolution associated with the solar cycle. The findings provide observational constraints on models of solar magnetic field generation and evolution and offer new insights into the scale-dependent properties of photospheric MCs over the solar cycle.
SN  - 0004-637X
SN  - 1538-4357
ER  -