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doi:10.1088/1742-5468/2006/02/P02003 Abstract. We use multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MF-DFA), to study sunspot number fluctuations. The result of the MF-DFA shows that there are three crossover timescales in the fluctuation function. We discuss how the existence of the crossover timescales is related to a sinusoidal trend. Using Fourier detrended fluctuation analysis, the sinusoidal trend is eliminated. The Hurst exponent of the time series without the sinusoidal trend is 0.12 ± 0.01. Also we find that these fluctuations have multifractal nature. Comparing the MF-DFA results for the remaining data set to those for shuffled and surrogate series, we conclude that its multifractal nature is almost entirely due to long range correlations