Space weather has become an international issue due to the catastrophic impact it can have on modern societies. Solar flares are one of the major solar activities that drive space weather and yet their occurrence is not fully understood. Research is required to yield a better understanding of flare occurrence and enable the development of an accurate flare prediction system, which can warn industries most at risk to take preventative measures to mitigate or avoid the effects of space weather. This thesis introduces novel technologies developed by combining advances in statistical physics, image processing, machine learning, and feature selection algorithms, with advances in solar physics in order to extract valuable knowledge from historical solar data, related to active regions and flares. The aim of this thesis is to achieve the followings: i) The design of a new measurement, inspired by the physical Ising model, to estimate the magnetic complexity in active regions using solar images and an investigation of this measurement in relation to flare occurrence. The proposed name of the measurement is the Ising Magnetic Complexity (IMC). ii) Determination of the flare prediction capability of active region properties generated by the new active region detection system SMART (Solar Monitor Active Region Tracking) to enable the design of a new flare prediction system. iii) Determination of the active region properties that are most related to flare occurrence in order to enhance understanding of the underlying physics behind flare occurrence. The achieved results can be summarised as follows: i) The new active region measurement (IMC) appears to be related to flare occurrence and it has a potential use in predicting flare occurrence and location. ii) Combining machine learning with SMART's active region properties has the potential to provide more accurate flare predictions than the current flare prediction systems i.e. ASAP (Automated Solar Activity Prediction). iii) Reduced set of 6 active region properties seems to be the most significant properties related to flare occurrence and they can achieve similar degree of flare prediction accuracy as the full 21 SMART active region properties. The developed technologies and the findings achieved in this thesis will work as a corner stone to enhance the accuracy of flare prediction; develop efficient flare prediction systems; and enhance our understanding of flare occurrence. The algorithms, implementation, results, and future work are explained in this thesis.

Die Arbeit beschreibt die Analyse von Beobachtungen zweier Sonnenflecken in zweidimensionaler Spektro-Polarimetrie. Die Daten wurden mit dem Fabry-Pérot-Interferometer der Universität Göttingen am Vakuum-Turm-Teleskop auf Teneriffa erfasst. Von der aktiven Region NOAA 9516 wurde der volle Stokes-Vektor des polarisierten Lichts in der Absorptionslinie bei 630,249 nm in Einzelaufnahmen beobachtet, und von der aktiven Region NOAA 9036 wurde bei 617,3 nm Wellenlänge eine 90-minütige Zeitserie des zirkular polarisierten Lichts aufgezeichnet. Aus den reduzierten Daten werden Ergebniswerte für Intensität, Geschwindigkeit in Beobachtungsrichtung, magnetische Feldstärke sowie verschiedene weitere Plasmaparameter abgeleitet. Mehrere Ansätze zur Inversion solarer Modellatmosphären werden angewendet und verglichen. Die teilweise erheblichen Fehlereinflüsse werden ausführlich diskutiert. Das Frequenzverhalten der Ergebnisse und Abhängigkeiten nach Ort und Zeit werden mit Hilfe der Fourier- und Wavelet-Transformation weiter analysiert. Als Resultat lässt sich die Existenz eines hochfrequenten Bandes für Geschwindigkeitsoszillationen mit einer zentralen Frequenz von 75 Sekunden (13 mHz) bestätigen. In größeren photosphärischen Höhen von etwa 500 km entstammt die Mehrheit der damit zusammenhängenden Schockwellen den dunklen Anteilen der Granulen, im Unterschied zu anderen Frequenzbereichen. Die 75-Sekunden-Oszillationen werden ebenfalls in der aktiven Region beobachtet, vor allem in der Lichtbrücke. In den identifizierten Bändern oszillatorischer Power der Geschwindigkeit sind in einer dunklen, penumbralen Struktur sowie in der Lichtbrücke ausgeprägte Strukturen erkennbar, die sich mit einer Horizontalgeschwindigkeit von 5-8 km/s in die ruhige Sonne bewegen. Diese zeigen einen deutlichen Anstieg der Power, vor allem im 5-Minuten-Band, und stehen möglicherweise in Zusammenhang mit dem Phänomen der „Evershed-clouds“. Eingeschränkt durch ein sehr geringes Signal-Rausch-Verhältnis und hohe Fehlereinflüsse werden auch Magnetfeldvariationen mit einer Periode von sechs Minuten am Übergang von Umbra zu Penumbra in der Nähe einer Lichtbrücke beobachtet. Um die beschriebenen Resultate zu erzielen, wurden bestehende Visualisierungsverfahren der Frequenzanalyse verbessert oder neu entwickelt, insbesondere für Ergebnisse der Wavelet-Transformation. / The publication describes the analysis of two sunspot observations in two-dimensional spectropolarimetry. The data was obtained with the Fabry-Pérot-interferometer of Göttingen University at the German Vacuum Tower Telescope on Tenerife. Of the active region NOAA 9516 the full Stokes vector of polarised light was observed in the absorption line at 630.249 nm in single scans. A ninety minute time series of circular polarised light of the active region NOAA 9036 was observed at 617.3 nm wavelength. From the reduced data results for intensity, line-of-sight velocity, magnetic field strength as well as several other plasma parameters are inferred. Different approaches to solar atmosphere model inversion are applied and compared. The significant influence of errors is discussed in detail. The frequency behaviour of the results and spatial and temporal dependencies are further analysed by Fourier and wavelet transformation. As a result the existence of a high frequency band of velocity oscillations with a central frequency of about 75-seconds (13 mHz) can be confirmed. In greater heights of about 500 km the majority of the corresponding shock waves are derived from darker parts of the granules in contrast to the dominant five-minute-oscillations. 75-second-oscillations can also be observed in the active region, especially in the light bridge. In the identified bands of oscillatory velocity power, distinct structures become visible in a penumbral dark structure as well as in the light bridge that move into the quiet sun with a horizontal speed of 5-8 km/s. They show an increase in power, mostly 5-minute-band, and may be related to the Evershed cloud phenomenon. Under the constraint of a very low signal-to-noise ratio and high error influence, magnetic field variations of a 6-minute period are also observed in an umbral-penumbral transition area close to a light bridge. To derive these results, existing visualisation methods for frequency analysis where improved or newly developed, especially so for wavelet transform results.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2017-04-27T12:47:11Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Tese Doutorado - Bruno Silva Leite.pdf: 6944857 bytes, checksum: 10fdad3c0d495f51166d24686d966b92 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-27T12:47:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Tese Doutorado - Bruno Silva Leite.pdf: 6944857 bytes, checksum: 10fdad3c0d495f51166d24686d966b92 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-16 / Um refinamento na análise do espectro de absorção IV das manchas solares permitiu a identificação de 67 novas bandas, que agora se somam as 185 já identificadas como transições rotovibracionais da molécula de água. Os resultados revelam transições dentro do mesmo nível vibracional assim como transições cruzadas envolvendo níveis vibracionais distintos. Identificamos ainda bandas que podem ser atribuídas aos estados eletrônicos excitados1ue 3 u, ambos com geometria linear D∞h. A partir desta identificação, consideramos também a possível ocorrência de outros estados excitados da molécula de água nas manchas solares, como os estados paramagnéticos 3A2 e 3B2. Os estados eletrônicos da molécula de água foram calculados em nível B3LYP/AUG-cc-pVTZ, obtendo-se geometria de equilíbrio, momentos de dipolo elétrico e magnético e outras propriedades que foram empregados para discutir a influência de estados eletrônicos excitados na dinâmica das manchas solares e no aumento de seu campo magnético. / A refinement in the analysis of the infrared absorption spectra of the sunspots allowed the identification of 67 new bands, which now add up to the 185 already identified as rotovibrational transitions of the water molecule. The results reveal transitions within the same vibrational level as well as cross transitions involving different vibrational levels. We have also identified bands that can be assigned to the excited electronic states 1uand 3u, both with linear geometry D∞h. From this identification, we also consider the possible occurrence of other excited states of the water molecule in sunspots, such as paramagnetic states 3A2 and 3B2. The electronic states of the water molecule were calculated at the B3LYP/AUG-cc-pVTZ level, obtaining equilibrium geometry, electric and magnetic dipole moments, and other properties that were used to discuss the influence of excited electronic states on the dynamics of sunspots and in the increase of their magnetic field.

no / The Solar Feature Catalogues (SFCs) are created from digitized solar images using automated pattern recognition techniques developed in the European Grid of Solar Observation (EGSO) project. The techniques were applied for detection of sunspots, active regions and filaments in the automatically standardized full-disk solar images in Caii K1, Caii K3 and H¿ taken at the Meudon Observatory and white-light images and magnetograms from SOHO/MDI. The results of automated recognition are verified with the manual synoptic maps and available statistical data from other observatories that revealed high detection accuracy. A structured database of the Solar Feature Catalogues is built on the MySQL server for every feature from their recognized parameters and cross-referenced to the original observations. The SFCs are published on the Bradford University web site http://www.cyber.brad.ac.uk/egso/SFC/ with the pre-designed web pages for a search by time, size and location. The SFCs with 9 year coverage (1996¿2004) provide any possible information that can be extracted from full disk digital solar images. Thus information can be used for deeper investigation of the feature origin and association with other features for their automated classification and solar activity forecast.

No / A crucial challenge to successful flare prediction is forecasting periods that transition between "flare-quiet" and "flare-active." Building on earlier studies in this series in which we describe the methodology, details, and results of flare forecasting comparison efforts, we focus here on patterns of forecast outcomes (success and failure) over multiday periods. A novel analysis is developed to evaluate forecasting success in the context of catching the first event of flare-active periods and, conversely, correctly predicting declining flare activity. We demonstrate these evaluation methods graphically and quantitatively as they provide both quick comparative evaluations and options for detailed analysis. For the testing interval 2016-2017, we determine the relative frequency distribution of two-day dichotomous forecast outcomes for three different event histories (i.e., event/event, no-event/event, and event/no-event) and use it to highlight performance differences between forecasting methods. A trend is identified across all forecasting methods that a high/low forecast probability on day 1 remains high/low on day 2, even though flaring activity is transitioning. For M-class and larger flares, we find that explicitly including persistence or prior flare history in computing forecasts helps to improve overall forecast performance. It is also found that using magnetic/modern data leads to improvement in catching the first-event/first-no-event transitions. Finally, 15% of major (i.e., M-class or above) flare days over the testing interval were effectively missed due to a lack of observations from instruments away from the Earth-Sun line.

The detection of low-mass extra-solar planets through radial-velocity searches is currently limited by the intrinsic magnetic activity of the host stars. The correlated noise that arises from their natural radial-velocity variability can easily mimic or conceal the orbital signals of super-Earth and Earth-mass extra-solar planets. I developed an intuitive and robust data analysis framework in which the activity-induced variations are modelled with a Gaussian process that has the frequency structure of the photometric variations of the star, thus allowing me to determine precise and reliable planetary masses. I applied this technique to three recently discovered planetary systems: CoRoT-7, Kepler-78 and Kepler-10. I determined the masses of the transiting super-Earth CoRoT-7b and the small Neptune CoRoT-7c to be 4.73 ± 0.95 M⊕ and 13.56 ± 1.08 M⊕, respectively. The density of CoRoT-7b is 6.61 ± 1.72 g.cm⁻³, which is compatible with a rocky composition. I carried out Bayesian model selection to assess the nature of a previously identified signal at 9 days, and found that it is best interpreted as stellar activity. Despite the high levels of activity of its host star, I determined the mass of the Earth-sized planet Kepler-78b to be 1.76 ± 0.18 M⊕. With a density of 6.2(+1.8:-1.4) g.cm⁻³, it is also a rocky planet. I found the masses of Kepler-10b and Kepler-10c to be 3.31 ± 0.32 M⊕ and 16.25 ± 3.66 M⊕, respectively. Their densities, of 6.4(+1.1:-0.7) g.cm⁻³ and 8.1 ± 1.8 g.cm⁻³, imply that they are both of rocky composition – even the 2 Earth-radius planet Kepler-10c! In parallel, I deepened our understanding of the physical origin of stellar radial-velocity variability through the study of the Sun, which is the only star whose surface can be imaged at high resolution. I found that the full-disc magnetic flux is an excellent proxy for activity-induced radial-velocity variations; this result may become key to breaking the activity barrier in coming years. I also found that in the case of CoRoT-7, the suppression of convective blueshift leads to radial-velocity variations with an rms of 1.82 m.s⁻¹, while the modulation induced by the presence of dark spots on the rotating stellar disc has an rms of 0.46 m.s⁻¹. For the Sun, I found these contributions to be 2.22 m.s⁻¹ and 0.14 m.s⁻¹, respectively. These results suggest that for slowly rotating stars, the suppression of convective blueshift is the dominant contributor to the activity-modulated radial-velocity signal, rather than the rotational Doppler shift of the flux blocked by starspots.

The existence of sunspots or sunspot equilibria has been debated for several decades on its influence in the field of Economics. While models of sunspots or sunspot equilibria have fitted well for some subsets of empirical features, it comes at a cost of moving further away from economic believability and robustness. Studies on the theoretical plausibility of sunspot equilibria have been addressed extensively in several different economic models, but exist almost entirely within the framework of the homogeneous rational expectations equilibrium devised of representative agents. This framework shapes later arising learning approaches to sunspot equilibria. These models have proposed various ways of learning, but they deal mainly with the learning of representative agents. Models of adaptive learning with heterogeneous agents, however, enable us to explicitly tackle coordination issues, such as the coordination mechanism of expectations. This is certainly desirable since sunspots are often used as a coordination device of expectations. In this dissertation, we continue this line of research, investigating the plausibility of sunspot equilibria in stock markets within the framework of heterogeneous agents and the dynamic relationship between sunspot variables and stock returns. We adopt an Agent-based Computational Approach, now known as Agent-based Computational Economics or ACE, to study the plausibility of sunspot equilibria. More specifically, we deal with this issue in the context of an Agent-based Artificial Stock Market (AASM). We contemplate AASMs to be highly suitable to the issue we examine here. Currently, none of the theoretical, empirical, experimental, or simulation models of sunspot equilibria directly capture sunspots within a stock market composed of heterogeneous agents. We conducted three series of experiments to examine this issue. From the results of these three series of simulations, we observed that sunspot variables generally do not have influence on market dynamics. This indicates that sunspot variables remain largely exogenous to the system. Furthermore, we traced the evolution of agents' beliefs and examined their consistency with the observed aggregate market behavior. Additionally, this dissertation takes the advantage of and investigates the micro-macro relationship within the market. We argue that a full understanding of the dynamic linkage between sunspot variables and stock returns cannot be accomplished unless the feedback relationship between individual behaviors, at the micro view, and aggregate phenomena, at the macro view, is well understood / The existence of sunspots or sunspot equilibria has been debated for several decades on its influence in the field of Economics. While models of sunspots or sunspot equilibria have fitted well for some subsets of empirical features, it comes at a cost of moving further away from economic believability and robustness. Studies on the theoretical plausibility of sunspot equilibria have been addressed extensively in several different economic models, but exist almost entirely within the framework of the homogeneous rational expectations equilibrium devised of representative agents. This framework shapes later arising learning approaches to sunspot equilibria. These models have proposed various ways of learning, but they deal mainly with the learning of representative agents. Models of adaptive learning with heterogeneous agents, however, enable us to explicitly tackle coordination issues, such as the coordination mechanism of expectations. This is certainly desirable since sunspots are often used as a coordination device of expectations. In this dissertation, we continue this line of research, investigating the plausibility of sunspot equilibria in stock markets within the framework of heterogeneous agents and the dynamic relationship between sunspot variables and stock returns. We adopt an Agent-based Computational Approach, now known as Agent-based Computational Economics or ACE, to study the plausibility of sunspot equilibria. More specifically, we deal with this issue in the context of an Agent-based Artificial Stock Market (AASM). We contemplate AASMs to be highly suitable to the issue we examine here. Currently, none of the theoretical, empirical, experimental, or simulation models of sunspot equilibria directly capture sunspots within a stock market composed of heterogeneous agents. We conducted three series of experiments to examine this issue. From the results of these three series of simulations, we observed that sunspot variables generally do not have influence on market dynamics. This indicates that sunspot variables remain largely exogenous to the system. Furthermore, we traced the evolution of agents' beliefs and examined their consistency with the observed aggregate market behavior. Additionally, this dissertation takes the advantage of and investigates the micro-macro relationship within the market. We argue that a full understanding of the dynamic linkage between sunspot variables and stock returns cannot be accomplished unless the feedback relationship between individual behaviors, at the micro view, and aggregate phenomena, at the macro view, is well understood.

Esta tesis consta de tres proyectos sobre coordinación y los conflictos utilizando un enfoque experimental. El capítulo 1 estudia si un mecanismo de votación incentiva una coordinación eficiente y concluye en comparación a un sistema de decisión carente de votación (regla del dictador), ambos mecanismos (decisión por mayoría y decisión unánime) son eficaces incentivando la coordinación en la toma de decisiones posteriores. El capítulo 2 se centra en los fallos de coordinación e investiga si una "mancha solar" puede causar un problema de coordinación sobre el equilibrio Pareto-Superior. De los resultados, se deduce que una señal aleatoria exógena genera ineficiencias, aunque sería simplemente mejor ignorarla. Por último, el capítulo 3 estudia un juego de concurso en una red de conflicto. Los resultados demuestran que las estructuras de red en cuestión importan en la determinación del nivel de las inversiones en tecnología de conflicto y, por lo tanto, afectan la intensidad total de los conflictos. / This thesis is a collection of three research projects on coordination and conflict using an experimental approach. Chapter 1 studies whether a voting mechanism induces efficient coordination; and, concludes that compared to a dictator rule where voting is absent, both of the voting rules studied, i.e. majority and unanimity, are successful in inducing coordination in subsequent decisions. Chapter 2 focuses on coordination failures and investigates whether a sunspot leads to failure in coordinating on the Pareto-Superior equilibrium; and in fact, deduces that a random exogenous signal leads to inefficiencies even though it would simply be better if ignored. Finally, chapter 3 studies a contest game in a conflict network. It shows that network structures matter in determining the level of individual investments in the conflict technology, and hence affect total conflict intensity.

Our Sun is a variable star. The magnetic fields in the Sun play an important role for the existence of a wide variety of phenomena on the Sun. Among those, sunspots are the slowly evolving features of the Sun but solar ares and coronal mass ejections are highly dynamic phenomena. Hence, the solar magnetic fields could affect the Earth directly or indirectly through the Sun's open magnetic flux, solar wind, solar are, coronal mass ejections and total solar irradiance variations. These large scale magnetic fields originate due to Magnetohydrodynamic dynamo process inside the solar convection zone converting the kinetic energy of the plasma motions into the magnetic energy. Currently the most promising model to understand the large scale magnetic fields of the Sun is the Flux Transport Dynamo (FTD) model. FTD models are mostly axisymmetric models, though the non-axisymmetric 3D FTD models are started to develop recently. In these models, we assume the total magnetic fields of the Sun consist of poloidal and toroidal components and solve the magnetic induction equation kinematicaly in the sense that velocity fields are invoked motivated from the observations. Differential rotation stretches the poloidal field to generate the toroidal field. When toroidal eld near the bottom of the convection zone become magnetically buoyant, it rises through the solar convection zone and pierce the surface to create bipolar sunspots. While rising through the solar convection zone, the Coriolis force keeps on acting on the flux tube, which introduces a tilt angle between bipolar sunspots. Since the sunspots are the dense region of magnetic fields, they diffuse away after emergence. The leading polarity sunspots (close to equator) from both the hemisphere cancel each other across the equator and trailing polarity sunspots migrate towards the pole to generate effective poloidal fields. This mechanism for generation of poloidal field from the decay of sunspots is known as Babcock-Leighton process. After the poloidal field is generated, the meridional flow carries this field to the pole and further to the bottom of the convection zone where differential rotation again acts on it to generate toroidal field. Hence the solar dynamo goes on by oscillation between the poloidal field and toroidal field, where they can sustain each other through a cyclic feedback process. Just like other physical models, FTD models have various assumptions and approximations to incorporate these different processes. Some of the assumptions are observationally verified and some of them are not. Considering the availability of observed data, many approximations have been made in these models on the theoretical basis. In this thesis, we present various studies leading to better understanding of the different processes and parameters of FTD models, which include magnetic buoyancy, meridional circulation and Babcock-Leighton process. In the introductory Chapter 1, we first present the observational features of the solar magnetic fields, theoretical background of the FTD models and motivation for investigating different processes. Most of the results of our work are presented in Chapters 2 - 7. In the Chapters 2 - 5, we explain various important issues regarding the treatment of magnetic buoyancy, irregularities of the solar cycle during descending phase, effect of different spatial structure of meridional flow on the dynamo and how dynamo generated fields would a ect the meridional ow using 2D axisymmetric Flux Transport Dynamo model. In the Chapters 6 & 7, the build up of polar fields from the decay of sunspots and a proper treatment of Babcock-Leighton process by invoking realistic convective flows, are presented using 3D Flux Transport Dynamo model. Finally the conclusions and future works are given in the Chapter 8. In 2D axisymmetric Flux Transport Dynamo models, the rise of the toroidal magnetic field through the convection zone due to magnetic buoyancy and then the generation of the poloidal magnetic field from these bipolar sunspots, has been treated mainly in two ways|a non-local method and a local method. In Chapter 2, we have analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of both the methods. We find that none of them are satisfactory to depict the correct picture of magnetic buoyancy because it is an inherently 3D process. Unless we go to the 3D framework of Flux Transport Dynamo models, we have to treat the magnetic buoyancy in such simplistic way. We find that the non-local treatment of magnetic buoyancy is very robust for a large span of parameter space but it does not take into account the depletion of flux from the bottom of the convection zone which has a significant importance in irregularity study of the solar cycle. The local treatment of magnetic buoyancy includes the flux depletion from the bottom of the convection zone and treats the magnetic buoyancy much realistically than the non-local treatment. But this local treatment of magnetic buoyancy is not so robust. We also pointed out that the long-standing issue about appearance of sunspots in the low-latitudes needs to be studied carefully. In Chapter 3, we have studied various irregularities of the solar cycle during its decaying phase. We have reported that the decay rate of the cycle is strongly correlated with amplitude of the same cycle as well as the amplitude of the next cycle from different sunspot proxies like sunspot number, sunspot area and 10.7 cm radio flux data. We explain these correlation from flux transport dynamo models. We nd that the correlations can only be reproduced if we introduce stochastic fluctuations in the meridional circulations. We also reproduced most of the correlation found in ascending and descending phase of the solar cycle from century long sunspot area data (Mandal et al., 2017) from Kodaikanal observatory, India which are in great agreement with the correlations found earlier from Greenwich sunspots data. In most of the FTD models, a single cell meridional circulation is assumed within the solar convection zone, with the equatorward return flow at its bottom. But with recent development in helioseismology, plenty of results have come out about various spatial structure of meridional circulation (Zhao et al., 2013; Schad et al., 2013; Rajaguru & Antia, 2015; Jackiewicz et al., 2015). Some helioseismology group (Zhao et al., 2013) reported that the meridional circulation has a double cell structure in solar convection zone and some groups (Schad et al., 2013; Jackiewicz et al., 2015) have reported a multi-cellular structure of meridional circulation in the convection zone. By probing the supergranular motion Hathaway (2012) estimated that the meridional ow has an equatorward return ow at the upper convection zone 70 Mm below the surface. In view of the above observed results, we have discussed in Chapter 4 what would happen to Flux Transport Dynamo model if we consider other structure of meridional circulation instead of single cell meridional circulation encompassing whole convection zone. We nd that the our dynamo model works perfectly ne as long as there is an equatorward propagation at the bottom of the convection zone. Our model also works with shallow meridional circulation as found by Hathaway (2012), if we consider the latitudinal pumping in our model. The temporal variation of meridional circulation on the surface is also observed from various measurement techniques. Chou & Dai (2001) rst observed a variation of meridional circulation with the solar cycle from their helioseismic measurements. Hathaway & Rightmire (2010) also found a variation up to 5 m s 1 for the solar cycle 23 by measuring the magnetic elements on the surface of the Sun. Recently Komm et al. (2015) have analyzed MDI and HMI Dopplergram data and reported a solar cyclic variation with detail latitudinal dependence. To explain this variation of the meridional circulation with the solar cycle, we construct a theoretical model by coupling the equation of the meridional circulation (the component of the vorticity equation within the solar convection zone) with the equations of the flux transport dynamo model in Chapter 5. We consider the back reaction due to the Lorentz force of the dynamo-generated magnetic fields and study the perturbations produced in the meridional circulation due to it. This enables us to model the variations of the meridional circulation without developing a full theory of the meridional circulation itself. We obtain results which reproduce the observational data of solar cycle variations of the meridional circulation reasonably well. We get the best results on assuming the turbulent viscosity acting on the velocity field to be comparable to the magnetic diffusivity (i.e. on assuming the magnetic Prandtl number to be close to unity). We have to assume an appropriate bottom boundary condition to ensure that the Lorentz force cannot drive a flow in the sub-adiabatic layers below the bottom of the tachocline. Our results are sensitive to this bottom boundary condition. We also suggest a hypothesis how the observed inward flow towards the active regions may be produced. In Chapter 6 and Chapter 7, we have studied some of the aspects of solar magnetic eld generation process using 3D dynamo model that were not possible to study earlier using axisymmetric 2D Flux Transport dynamo models. We have used the 3D dynamo model developed by Mark Miesch (Miesch & Dikpati, 2014; Miesch & Teweldebirhan, 2016) and study how polar fields build up from the decay of sunspots more realistically in Chapter 6. We first reproduce the observed butter y diagram and periodic solution considering higher diffusivity value than earlier reported results and use it as a reference model to study the build up polar fields by putting a single sunspot pair in one hemisphere and two sunspot pairs in both the hemispheres. The build up of the polar fields from the decay of sunspots are studied earlier using Surface Flux Transport model (Wang et al., 1989; Baumann et al., 2004; Cameron et al., 2010) which solve only radial component of the induction equation on the surface of the Sun ( | plane). But these 2D SFT models have some inherent limitation for not considering the 3D vectorial nature of the magnetic fields and subsurface processes. We have shown that not considering the vectorial nature and subsurface process has an important effect on the development of the polar fields. We have also studied the effect of a few large sunspot pairs violating Hale's law on the strength of the polar field in this Chapter. We nd that such ant-Hale sunspot pairs do produce some effect on the polar fields, if they appear at higher latitudes during the mid-phase of the solar cycle|but the effect is not dramatic. In Chapter 7, we have incorporated observed surface convective ows directly in our 3D dynamo model. As we know that the observed convective flows on the photosphere (e.g., supergranulation, granulation) play a key role in the Babcock-Leighton (BL) process to generate large scale polar fields from sunspots fields. In most surface flux transport (SFT) and BL dynamo models, the dispersal and migration of surface fields is modeled as an effective turbulent diffusion. Recent SFT models have incorporated explicit, realistic convective flows in order to improve the fidelity of convective transport but, to our knowledge, this has not yet been implemented in previous BL models. Since most Flux-Transport (FT)/BL models are axisymmetric, they do not have the capacity to include such flows. We present the first kinematic 3D FT/BL model to explicitly incorporate realistic convective flows based on solar observations. Though we describe a means to generalize these flows to 3D, we find that the kinematic small-scale dynamo action they produce disrupts the operation of the cyclic dynamo. Cyclic solution is found by limiting the convective flow to surface flux transport. The results obtained are generally in good agreement with the observed surface flux evolution and with non-convective models that have a turbulent diffusivity on the order of 3 1012 cm 2 s 1 (300 km2 s 1). However, we nd that the use of a turbulent diffusivity underestimates the dynamo efficiency, producing weaker mean fields than in the convective models. Also, the convective models exhibit mixed polarity bands in the polar regions that have no counterpart in solar observations. Also, the explicitly computed turbulent electromotive force (emf) bears little resemblance to a diffusive flux. We also find that the poleward migration speed of poloidal flux is determined mainly by the meridional flow and the vertical diffusion.

No description available.