  The Sun is a magnetic star whose magnetism and cyclic activity is linked to
the existence of an internal dynamo. We aim to understand the establishment of
the solar magnetic 22-yr cycle, its associated butterfly diagram and field
parity selection through numerical simulations of the solar global dynamo.
Inspired by recent observations and 3D simulations that both exhibit
multicellular flows in the solar convection zone, we seek to characterise the
influence of various profiles of circulation on the behaviour of solar
mean-field dynamo models. We are using 2-D mean field flux transport
Babcock-Leighton numerical models in which we test several types of meridional
flows: 1 large single cell, 2 cells in radius and 4 cells per hemisphere. We
confirm that adding cells in latitude tends to speed up the dynamo cycle
whereas adding cells in radius more than triples the period. We find that the
cycle period in the four cells model is less sensitive to the flow speed than
in the other simpler meridional circulation profiles studied. Moreover, our
studies show that adding cells in radius or in latitude seems to favour the
parity switching to a quadrupolar solution. According to our numerical models,
the observed 22-yr cycle and dipolar parity is easily reproduced by models
including multicellular meridional flows. On the contrary, the resulting
butterfly diagram and phase relationship between the toroidal and poloidal
fields are affected to a point where it is unlikely that such multicellular
meridional flows persist for a long period of time inside the Sun, without
having to reconsider the model itself.
