A Synoptic View of the Subphotospheric Horizontal Velocity Flows in the Sun

González Hernández, I.; Patrón, J.; Roca-Cortés, T.; Bogart, R. S.; Hill, F.; Rhodes, E. J., Jr.
Bibliographical reference

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 535, Issue 1, pp. 454-463.

Advertised on:
5
2000
Number of authors
6
IAC number of authors
2
Citations
8
Refereed citations
6
Description
Ring diagram analysis, a technique of local helioseismology, has been applied to 120 regions of 15deg×15deg over the solar surface in order to study the mass motions in the upper layers of the convection zone. The horizontal flows from ~0.95 Rsolar up to the surface have been investigated in a region spanning 360deg in longitude and about 75deg in latitude. The regions were tracked in groups of five centered at 0, +/-15°, and +/-30° in latitude over a timespan of +/-768 minutes from central meridian crossing. More than 30,000 full-disk Dopplergrams taken by the Solar Oscillation Investigation/Michelson Doppler Imager (SOI/MDI) on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft have been analyzed to create a synoptic map. The images were taken during the first SOI Dynamics Program in 1996 May and June and have a pixel size of ~2" allowing coverage in l up to 1200. The p-modes analyzed cover a range of 0<=n<=7 and 183<=l<=999. The estimated velocity vectors provide information on the size and structure of large-scale flows. The flows exhibit markedly meridional behavior between 0.975 and 0.997 Rsolar. The zonal component is mainly ruled by the differential rotation.
Type