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Session 18 - The Sun.
Display session, Monday, January 13
Metropolitan Ballroom,
Three-dimensional flow velocities in the convection zone are inferred by inverting acoustic travel-time data obtained in the high-resolution mode (0.6 arcsec/pixel) of the Michelson Doppler Imager on SOHO. The solar acoustic waves propagate in the Sun between points on the solar surface, primarily, along the ray paths. The travel time of the waves depends on sound speed perturbations and the velocity of flow along these ray paths. The effects of the sound speed perturbations and flows are separated by measuring the travel time of waves propagating in opposite directions along the same ray paths. A tomographic inversion method has been used to reconstruct 3-dimensional maps of the subsurface inhomogeneities and flows. The results reveal supergranulation flows beneath the surface, and also flows associated with magnetic structures. Observations of the temporal evolution of the flows will give us important insight into the physics of convective energy transport in the Sun and into the mechanisms of solar activity.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: sasha@quake.stanford.edu
