The solar benchmark: Rotational modulation of the Sun reconstructed from archival sunspot records

We use archival daily spot coverage measurements from Howard et al. to study the rotational modulation of the Sun as though it were a distant star. A quasi-periodic Gaussian process measures the solar rotation period P-rot = 26.3 +/- 0.1 d, and activity cycle period P-cyc = 10.7 +/- 0.3 yr. We attempt to search for evidence of differential rotation in variations of the apparent rotation period throughout the activity cycle and do not detect a clear signal of differential rotation, consistent with the null results of the hare-and-hounds exercise of Aigrain et al. The full reconstructed solar light curve is available online.

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Related Software #1 : Bmorris3/Solarlightcurve V0.1
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Copyright 2019 Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.
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Author Morris, B. M.
Davenport, J. R. A.
Giles, H. A. C.
Hebb, L.
Hawley, S. L.
Angus, R.
Gilman, Peter A.
Agol, E.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2019-01-18T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2025-07-11T19:31:47.672097
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:22430
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Morris, B. M., Davenport, J. R. A., Giles, H. A. C., Hebb, L., Hawley, S. L., Angus, R., Gilman, Peter A., Agol, E.. (2019). The solar benchmark: Rotational modulation of the Sun reconstructed from archival sunspot records. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7tt4v0q. Accessed 03 November 2025.

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