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A Catalog of Bipolar Active Regions Violating the Hale Polarity Law, 1989 – 2018

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Abstract

There is no list of bipolar active regions (ARs) with reverse polarity (anti-Hale regions), although statistical investigations of such ARs (bearing the imprint of deep subphotospheric processes) are important for understanding solar-cycle mechanisms. We studied 8606 ARs from 1 January 1989 to 31 December 2018 to detect anti-Hale regions and to compile a catalog. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) data, as well as the Debrecen Photoheliographic Data, the Mount Wilson Observatory catalog and drawings, and the USAF/NOAA Solar Region Summary were used. Complex, ambiguous cases related to anti-Hale region identification were analyzed. Two basic and four additional criteria to identify an AR as an anti-Hale region were formulated. The basic criteria assume that: i) dominant features of an AR have to form a bipole of reverse polarity with sunspots/pores of both polarities being present; ii) magnetic connections between the opposite polarities have to be observed. A catalog of anti-Hale regions (275 ARs) is compiled. The catalog contains: NOAA number, date of the greatest total area of sunspots, coordinates, and corrected sunspot area for this date. The tilt and the most complex achieved Mount Wilson magnetic class are also provided. The percentage of anti-Hale groups meeting the proposed criteria is \(\approx3.0\%\) from all studied ARs, which is close to early estimations by authors who had examined each AR individually: \(\approx2.4\%\) by Hale and Nicholson (Astrophys. J. 62, 270, 1925) and \(\approx3.1\%\) by Richardson (Astrophys. J. 107, 78, 1948). The enhancement of the anti-Hale percentage in later research might be related to: i) increasing sensitivity of instruments (considering smaller and smaller bipoles); ii) the ambiguities in the anti-Hale region identification. The catalog is available as the Supplementary Information and at the CrAO website (sun.crao.ru/databases/catalog-anti-hale/).

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Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to L.V. Ermakova and A.S. Kutsenko for consulting on complex, ambiguous ARs. Efforts of A.V. Zhukova on the catalog compilation were supported by the RSF (Project 18-12-00131). A.I. Khlystova thanks the support of the RFBR’s grants 18-02-00085 and 19-52-45002. The work of A.I. Khlystova was supported by the basic financial program of the FSR II.16. D.D. Sokoloff is grateful for the RFBR support under the grant 18-02-00085. V.I. Abramenko would like to acknowledge partial support of the MSHE of RF (Research 0831-2019-0006).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Crimean Astrophysical Observatory of Russian Academy of Sciences, Nauchny, 298409, Bakhchisaray, Republic of Crimea

    Anastasiya Zhukova & Valentina Abramenko

  2. Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics of Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Lermontov st., 126a, Irkutsk, 664033, Russia

    Anna Khlystova

  3. Department of Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Physics, Leninskie Gory, 1-2, Moscow, 119992, Russia

    Dmitry Sokoloff

  4. Moscow Center of Fundamental and Applied Mathematics, Moscow, 119991, Russia

    Dmitry Sokoloff

  5. IZMIRAN, Kaluzhskoe shosse, 4, Troitsk, Moscow, 142191, Russia

    Dmitry Sokoloff

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  1. Anastasiya Zhukova
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Zhukova, A., Khlystova, A., Abramenko, V. et al. A Catalog of Bipolar Active Regions Violating the Hale Polarity Law, 1989 – 2018. Sol Phys 295, 165 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-020-01734-9

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