Nonlinear and chaotic resonances in solar activity

Abstract

It is shown that, the wavelet regression detrended fluctuations of the monthly sunspot number for 1749-2009 years exhibit strong periodicity with a period approximately equal to 3.7 years. The wavelet regression method detrends the data from the approximately 11-years period. Therefore, it is suggested that the one-third subharmonic resonance can be considered as a background for the 11-years solar cycle. It is also shown that the broad-band part of the wavelet regression detrended fluctuations spectrum exhibits an exponential decay that, together with the positive largest Lyapunov exponent, are the hallmarks of chaos. Using a complex-time analytic approach the rate of the exponential decay of the broad-band part of the spectrum has been theoretically related to the Carrington solar rotation period. Relation of the driving period of the subharmonic resonance (3.7-years) to the active longitude flip-flop phenomenon, in which the dominant part of the sunspot activity changes the longitude every 3.7 years on average, has been briefly discussed.