English

How much do helioseismological inferences depend upon the assumed reference model?

Astrophysics 2008-11-26 v1

Abstract

We investigate systematic uncertainties in determining the profiles of the solar sound speed, density, and adiabatic index by helioseismological techniques. We find that rms uncertainties-averaged over the sun of ~ 0.2%-0.4% are contributed to the sound speed profile by each of three sources: 1)the choice of assumed reference model, 2) the width of the inversion kernel, and 3) the measurements errors. The density profile is about an order of magnitude less well determined by the helioseismological measurements. The profile of the adiabatic index is determined to an accuracy of about 0.2% . We find that even relatively crude reference models yield reasonably accurate solar parameters.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9909247,
  title  = {How much do helioseismological inferences depend upon the assumed reference model?},
  author = {Sarbani Basu and M. H. Pinsonneault and John N. Bahcall},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9909247},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in ApJ . Related material at http://www.sns.ias.edu/~jnb