Longitudinal structure of solar activity: Regular and stochastic behavior

The ratio of regular and stochastic components in the behavior of the longitudinal-temporal distribution of solar activity is studied with the use of correlation and spectral analysis of data on sunspot groups for 12 solar cycles. It was found that data samples of about 10 years in length often (in 50% of cases) show the presence of regular structures in the longitudinal distribution of sunspot groups. However, these structures are nonstationary; their characteristic scales and rotation periods vary when changing from one 10-year interval to another. The behavior of the longitudinal structure of sunspot activity is mainly stochastic on a long time scale (50-100 years); it is characterized by a wide spectrum of spatial scales and a continuous spectrum of rotation periods, which takes a period from 25.6 to 28.5 days.