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The poleward migration of the active regions' magnetic flux on the solar surface plays an important role in the development of the large-scale field development, especially the polar field reversal, which is a key process in the Babcock-Leighton-type solar dynamos. The poleward flux transport is nonuniform, centered around poleward surges as suggested by previous observations. The strong, long-lasting surges are related to activity complexes, and often result in violent polar field reversal. However, the nonuniformity of poleward flux transport has not been evaluated quantitatively. We propose a statistical method to analyze the poleward flux transport during solar cycles 21-24 by considering the frequency distributions of the magnetic field at latitudes of poleward surges occurrence during solar cycles. The nonuniformity is quantified as the kurtosis statistics representing the tailedness of the distributions. We test the method on results of surface flux transport simulations, and apply to WSO, NSO, MWO, and HMI data. We confirm that the poleward surges are of significance during solar cycles 21-24 in general. The kurtosis within a solar cycle is affected by different latitudes of the magnetic field and different data sources. The southern hemisphere of cycle 24 exhibits the largest kurtosis, agreeing the super surge concept from previous work. The significant nonuniformity of poleward flux transport originates from the nonrandomness of active regions, which favors the activity complexes origin of poleward surges., Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Solar activity cycle varies in amplitude. The last Cycle 24 is the weakest in the past century. Sun's activity dominates Earth's space environment. The frequency and intensity of the Sun's activity are accordant with the solar cycle. Hence there are practical needs to know the amplitude of the upcoming Cycle 25. The dynamo-based solar cycle predictions not only provide predictions, but also offer an effective way to evaluate our understanding of the solar cycle. In this article we apply the method of the first successful dynamo-based prediction developed for Cycle 24 to the prediction of Cycle 25, so that we can verify whether the previous success is repeatable. The prediction shows that Cycle 25 would be about 10% stronger than Cycle 24 with an amplitude of 126 (international sunspot number version 2.0). The result suggests that Cycle 25 will not enter the Maunder-like grand solar minimum as suggested by some publications. Solar behavior in about four to five years will give a verdict whether the prediction method captures the key mechanism for solar cycle variability, which is assumed as the polar field around the cycle minimum in the model., Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures

The solar dipole moment at cycle minimum is considered to be the most successful precursor for the amplitude of the subsequent cycle. Numerical simulations of the surface flux transport (SFT) model are widely used to effectively predict the dipole moment at cycle minimum. Recently an algebraic method has been proposed to quickly predict the contribution of an active region (AR) to the axial dipole moment at cycle minimum instead of SFT simulations. However, the method assumes a bipolar magnetic region (BMR) configuration of ARs. Actually most ARs are asymmetric in configuration of opposite polarities, or have more complex configurations. Such ARs evolve significantly differently from that of BMR approximations. We propose a generalized algebraic method to describe the axial dipole contribution of an AR with an arbitrary configuration, and evaluate its effectiveness compared to the BMR-based method. We employ mathematical deductions to obtain the generalized method. We compare the results of the generalized method with SFT simulations of observed ARs, artificially created BMRs, and ARs with more complex configurations. We also compare the results with that from the BMR-based method. The generalized method is equivalent to the SFT model, and precisely predicts the ARs' contributions to the dipole moment. The method has a much higher computational efficiency than SFT simulations. Although the BMR-based method has similar computational efficiency as the generalized method, it is only accurate for symmetric bipolar ARs. The BMR-based method systematically overestimates the dipole contributions of asymmetric bipolar ARs, and randomly miscalculate the contributions of more complex ARs. The generalized method provides a quick and precise quantification of an AR's contribution to the solar cycle evolution, which paves the way for the application into the physics-based solar cycle prediction., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A

Long-lasting activity complexes (ACs), characterised as a series of closely located, continuously emerging solar active regions (ARs), are considered generating prominent poleward surges from observations. The surges lead to significant variations of the polar field, which are important for the modulation of solar cycles. We aim to study a prominent poleward surge during solar cycle 24 on the southern hemisphere, and analyse its originating ACs and the effect on the polar field evolution. We automatically identify and characterize ARs based on synoptic magnetograms from the Solar Dynamic Observatory. We assimilate these ARs with realistic magnetic configuration into a surface flux transport model, and simulate the creation and migration of the surge. Our simulations well reproduce the characteristics of the surge and show that the prominent surge is mainly caused by the ARs belonging to two ACs during Carrington Rotations 2145-2159 (December 2013-January 2015). The surge has a strong influence on the polar field evolution of the southern hemisphere during the latter half of cycle 24. Without the about one-year-long flux emergence in the form of ACs, the polar field around the cycle minimum would have remained at a low level and even reversed to the polarity at cycle 23 minimum. Our study also shows that the long-lived unipolar regions due to the decay of the earlier emerging ARs cause an intrinsic difficulty of automatically identifying and precisely quantifying later emerging ARs in ACs., Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal

The purpose of this paper is to show that large active regions (ARs) with different magnetic configurations have different contributions to short-term and long-term variations of the Sun. As a case study, the complex $\delta$-type AR 12673 and the simple $\beta$-type AR 12674 are investigated in detail. Since the axial dipole moment at cycle minimum determines the amplitude of the subsequent cycle and space climate, we have assimilated the individual observed magnetic configurations of these two ARs into a surface flux transport model to compare their contributions to the axial dipole moment $D$. We find that AR 12673 has a significant effect on $D$ at the end of the cycle, making it weaker because of the abnormal and complicated magnetic polarities. An initial strongly positive $D$ ends up with a strongly negative value. The flare-poor AR 12674 has a greater contribution to the long-term axial dipole moment than the flare-rich AR 12673. We then carry out a statistical analysis of ARs larger than 800 $\mu$Hem from 1976 to 2017. We use the flare index FI and define an axial dipole moment index DI to quantify the effects of each AR on space weather and space climate, respectively. Whereas the FI has a strong dependence on the magnetic configuration, the DI shows no such dependence. The DI is mainly determined by the latitudinal location and the latitudinal separation of the positive and negative magnetic fluxes of the ARs. Simple ARs have the same possibility as complex ARs to produce big DI values affecting space climate., Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

The prediction of the strength of future solar cycles is of interest because of its practical significance for space weather and as a test of our theoretical understanding of the solar cycle. The Babcock-Leighton mechanism allows predictions by assimilating the observed magnetic field on the surface. But the emergence of sunspot groups has the random properties, which make it impossible to accurately predict the solar cycle and also strongly limit the scope of cycle predictions. Hence we develop the scheme to investigate the predictability of the solar cycle over one cycle. When a cycle has been ongoing for more than 3 years, the sunspot group emergence can be predicted along with its uncertainty during the rest time of the cycle. The method for doing this is to start by generating a set of random realizations which obey the statistical relations of the sunspot emergence. We then use a surface flux transport model to calculate the possible axial dipole moment evolutions. The correlation between the axial dipole moment at cycle minimum and the subsequent cycle strength and other empirical properties of solar cycles are used to predict the possible profiles of the subsequent cycle. We apply this scheme to predict the large-scale field evolution from 2018 to the end of cycle 25, whose maximum strength is expected to lie in the range from 93 to 155 with a probability of 95\%., Comment: 36 pages, 13 figures, Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

The knowledge of magnetic topology is the key to understand magnetic energy release in astrophysics. Based on observed vector magnetograms, we have determined threedimensional (3D) topology skeleton of the magnetic fields in active region NOAA 10720. The skeleton consists of six 3D magnetic nulls and a network of corresponding spines, fans, and null-null lines. For the first time, we have identified a spiral magnetic null in Sun's corona. The magnetic lines of force twisted around the spine of the null, forming a 'magnetic wreath' with excess of free magnetic energy and resembling observed brightening structures at extraultraviolet (EUV) wavebands. We found clear evidence of topology eruptions which are referred to as the catastrophic changes of topology skeleton associated with a coronal mass ejection (CME) and an explosive X-ray flare. These results shed new lights in exploring the structural complexity and its role in explosive magnetic activity. In solar astrophysics and space science, the concept of flux rope has been widely used in modelling explosive magnetic activity, although their observational identity is obscure or, at least, lacking of necessary details. The current work suggests that the magnetic wreath associated with the 3D spiral null is likely an important class of the physical entity of flux ropes., Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, 1 table