Related papers: The Puzzling Structure of Solar Convection: Window…
The Sun's axisymmetric large-scale flows, differential rotation and meridional circulation, are thought to be maintained by the influence of rotation on the thermal-convective motions in the solar convection zone. These large-scale flows…
We discuss recent observational, theoretical and modeling progress made in understanding the Sun's internal dynamics, including its rotation, meridional flow, convection and overshoot. Over the past few decades, substantial theoretical and…
The meridional circulation of the Sun, which is observed to be poleward at the surface, should have a return flow at some depth. Since large-scale flows like the differential rotation and the meridional circulation are driven by turbulent…
The Sun rotates differentially with a fast equator and slow pole. Convection in the solar interior is thought to maintain the differential rotation. However, although many numerical simulations have been conducted to reproduce the solar…
A comprehensive understanding of the solar magnetic cycle requires detailed modeling of the solar interior including the maintenance and variation of large scale flows (differential rotation and meridional flow), the solar dynamo and the…
Surface observations indicate that the speed of the solar meridional circulation in the photosphere varies in anti-phase with the solar cycle. The current explanation for the source of this variation is that inflows into active regions…
Large-scale plasma flows in the Sun's convection zone likely play a major role in solar dynamics on decadal timescales. In particular, quantifying meridional motions is a critical ingredient for understanding the solar cycle and the…
The magnetic activity of the Sun, as manifested in the sunspot cycle, originates deep within its convection zone through a dynamo mechanism which involves non-trivial interactions between the plasma and magnetic field in the solar interior.…
In the solar convection zone, rotation couples with intensely turbulent convection to drive a strong differential rotation and achieve complex magnetic dynamo action. Our sun must have rotated more rapidly in its past, as is suggested by…
Meridional circulation regulates the Sun's interior dynamics and magnetism. While it is well accepted that meridional flows are poleward at the Sun's surface, helioseismic observations have yet to provide a definitive answer for the depth…
The solar interior is filled with turbulent thermal convection, which plays a key role in the energy and momentum transport and the generation of the magnetic field. The turbulent flows in the solar interior cannot be optically detected due…
Helioseismology shows that the regions occupied by convection and differential rotation inside the sun almost coincide. This supports the leading theoretical concept for the origin of differential rotation as a result of interaction between…
The form of the solar meridional circulation is a very important ingredient for mean field flux transport dynamo models. Yet a shroud of mystery still surrounds this large-scale flow, given that its measurement using current helioseismic…
For more than thirty years, the dynamical maintenance of the thin solar tachocline has remained one of the central outstanding problems of stellar astrophysics. Three main theories have been developed to explain the tachocline's thinness,…
Helioseismology provides important constraints for the solar dynamo problem. However, the basic properties and even the depth of the dynamo process, which operates also in other stars, are unknown. Most of the dynamo models suggest that the…
The solar activity cycle is successfully modeled by the flux transport dynamo, in which the meridional circulation of the Sun plays an important role. Most of the kinematic dynamo simulations assume a one-cell structure of the meridional…
Our understanding of stellar dynamos has largely been driven by the phenomena we have observed of our own Sun. Yet, as we amass longer-term datasets for an increasing number of stars, it is clear that there is a wide variety of stellar…
The intense turbulence present in the solar convection zone is a major challenge to both theory and simulation as one tries to understand the origins of the striking differential rotation profile with radius and latitude that has been…
The overall framework for the study of solar convection and oscillations is the spherically symmetric component of solar structure. I discuss those properties of the solar interior which depend on convection and other possible…
The predictability, or lack thereof, of the solar cycle is governed by numerous separate physical processes that act in unison in the interior of the Sun. Magnetic flux transport and the finite time delay it introduces, specifically in the…