Related papers: Daytime Seeing and Solar Limb Positions
Solar meridional circulation, which manifests as poleward flow near the surface, is a relatively weak flow. While meridional circulation has been measured through various local helioseismic techniques, there is a lack of consensus about the…
This paper describes a new class of experiments that use dispersion in optical fibers to convert the gravitational frequency shift of light into a measurable phase shift or time delay. Two conceptual models are explored. In the first model,…
Stars appear darker at their limbs than at their disk centers because at the limb we are viewing the higher and cooler layers of stellar photospheres. Limb darkening derived from state-of-the-art stellar atmosphere models systematically…
The temporal behaviour of solar active longitudes has been examined by using two sunspot catalogues, the Greenwich Photoheliographic Results (GPR) and the Debrecen Photoheliographic Data (DPD). The time-longitude diagrams of the activity…
The use of four Lagrange points of the Sun/Earth system for fundamental physics experiments in space is presented. L1, L2, L4 and L5 rotating rigidly together with the Earth form a natural reference frame at the scale of the inner solar…
We analyze the high-resolution observations from the 1.6m telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory that cover an active region filament. Counter-streaming motions are clearly observed in the filament. The northern end of the…
We study the evolution of the flows and horizontal proper motions in and around a decaying follower sunspot based on time sequences of two-dimensional spectroscopic observations in the visible and white light imaging data obtained over six…
This work presents a new method to compute time and wavelength dependent center-to-limb brightness distributions for Classical Cepheids. Our model atmospheres are based on second-order accurate 1-D hydrodynamic calculations, performed in…
We have examined how the characteristics of the tachocline -- i.e., the change in rotation rate $\delta\Omega$, or the "jump", the position of the midpoint of the tachocline, $r_d$, and the width of the tachocline, $w_d$, -- change as a…
We investigate the effect of spiral structure on the Galactic disk as viewed by pencil beams centered on the Sun, relevant to upcoming surveys such as ARGOS, SEGUE, and GAIA. We create synthetic Galactic maps which we call Pencil Beam Maps…
We have examined the global structure of the solar magnetic field using data from the FeI spectral line at {\lambda}5250.2{\AA} obtained at the 150-foot tower telescope at the Mt. Wilson Observatory (MWO). For each point on the solar…
Previous helioseismology of sunspots has been sensitive to both the structural and magnetic aspects of sunspot structure. We aim to develop a technique that is insensitive to the magnetic component so the two aspects can be more readily…
The site survey for the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope concluded recently after more than two years of data gathering and analysis. Six locations, including lake, island and continental sites, were thoroughly probed for image quality…
Using wavelet analysis approach, the temporal variations of solar activity on time scales ranging from days to decades, are examined from the daily time series of sunspot numbers. A hierarchy of changing complex periods are careful detected…
We present a calculation of the Sun's motion through the Milky Way Galaxy over the last 500 million years. The integration is based upon estimates of the Sun's current position and speed from measurements with Hipparcos and upon a realistic…
We report the first direct measurements of the very small effect of forced diurnal polar motion, successfully observed on three of our large ring lasers, which now measure the instantaneous direction of Earth's rotation axis to a precision…
Young and active stars generally have regular, almost sinusoidal, patterns of variability attributed to their rotation, while the majority of older and less active stars, including the Sun, have more complex and non-regular light-curves…
We explore the sensitivity of limb darkening coefficients computed from stellar atmosphere models to different least-squares fitting methods. We demonstrate that conventional methods are strongly biased to fitting the stellar limb. Our…
We measure the axisymmetric transport of magnetic flux on the Sun by cross-correlating narrow strips of data from line-of-sight magnetograms obtained at a 96-minute cadence by the MDI instrument on the ESA/NASA SOHO spacecraft and then…
If the structure of spacetime is discrete, then Lorentz symmetry should only be an approximation, valid at long length scales. At finite lattice spacings there will be small corrections to the Dirac evolution that could in principle be…