Research Note

On comparing estimates of low- solar p-mode frequencies from Sun-as-a-star and resolved observations

¹ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK e-mail: wjc@bison.ph.bham.ac.uk
² ESA Research and Science Support Department, ESTEC, 2200 AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands
³ School of Science & Mathematics, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield S1 1WB, UK

Received: 23 March 2004
Accepted: 5 July 2004

Abstract

Low-angular-degree (low-l) solar p modes provide a sensitive probe of the radiative interior and core of the Sun. Estimates of their centroid frequencies can be used to constrain the spherically symmetric structure of these deep-lying layers. The required data can be extracted from two types of observation: one where the modes are detected in integrated sunlight, i.e., a Sun-as-a-star view; and a second where the visible disc is imaged onto many pixels, and the collected images then decomposed into their constituent spherical harmonics. While the imaging strategy provides access to all of the individual components of a multiplet, the Sun-as-a-star technique is sensitive to only about two thirds of these (average over to 3) with those modes that are detected having different levels of visibility. Because the various components can have contrasting spatial structure over the solar surface, they can respond very differently to changes in activity along the solar cycle. Since the Sun-as-a-star and resolved analyses take as input a different “subset” of modes, the extracted frequency estimates are expected to differ depending upon the phase of the cycle. Differences also arise from the types of models used to fit the modes. Here, we present expressions that allow the sizes of these differences to be predicted.