THE LATITUDE DISTRIBUTION OF SMALL-SCALE MAGNETIC ELEMENTS IN SOLAR CYCLE 23

With the unique data set from full-disk observations provided by Michelson Doppler Imager on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory in the interval embodying solar cycle 23, we have found that the cyclic variations of numbers and total flux of these small-scale magnetic elements covering fluxes of (2.9-32.0) Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 18} Mx and (4.27-38.01) Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 19} Mx show anticorrelation and correlation with sunspots, respectively. In this study, the time-latitude distributions of these anticorrelated and correlated elements are analyzed. The following results are disclosed: (1) for the correlated elements, the cyclic variations of the total flux in low-latitude and middle-latitude regions show a longer duration of cyclic maximum phase than that of an active region (AR) in the corresponding latitude region; the total flux of these elements shows the accordant south-north asymmetry with that of AR; the time-latitude distribution of their number displays a similar butterfly diagram but with a latitude distribution that is twice as wide as that of sunspots. (2) For the anticorrelated elements, the time-latitude distribution of number shows a solar cycle variation different from the sunspot butterfly diagram; in each latitude, the distribution of anticorrelated elements always shows the anticorrelated variation with that of sunspots; duringmore » solar cycle 23, the average speed of the peak latitudinal migration for anticorrelated elements reaches 7.5 deg year{sup -1}, almost three times that for sunspots. These results seem to imply that the correlated elements are the debris of decayed sunspots, and the anticorrelated elements have a different source but are affected or modulated by sunspot magnetic field.« less