Related papers: Dynamics of the tachocline
Recently helioseismic observations have revealed the presence of a shear layer at the base of the convective zone related to the transition from differential rotation in the convection zone to almost uniform rotation in the radiative…
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,…
The tachocline is believed to be the region where the solar dynamo operates. With over a solar cycle's worth of data available from the MDI and GONG instruments, we are in a position to investigate not merely the average structure of the…
The solar tachocline, located at the interface between the latitude-dependent rotation of the convection zone and the rigid radiative interior, presents high gradients of angular velocity which are of particular interest for the models of…
The helioseismically observed solar tachocline is a thin internal boundary layer of shear that separates the rigidly-rotating solar radiative zone from the differentially-rotating convective zone and is believed to play a central role in…
The surprising thinness of the solar tachocline is still not understood with certainty today. Among the numerous possible scenarios suggested to explain its radial confinement, one hypothesis is based on Maxwell stresses that are exerted by…
The solar tachocline is a shear layer located at the base of the solar convection zone. The horizontal shear in the tachocline is likely turbulent, and it is often assumed that this turbulence would be strongly anisotropic as a result of…
Helioseismology has provided very detailed inferences about rotation of the solar interior. Within the convection zone the rotation rate roughly shares the latitudinal variation seen in the surface differential rotation. The transition to…
A major outstanding problem in solar physics is the confinement of the solar tachocline, the thin shear layer that separates nearly solid-body rotation in the radiative interior from strong differential rotation in the convection zone.…
A new set of accurately measured frequencies of solar oscillations are used to infer the rotation rate inside the Sun, as a function of radial distance as well as latitude. We have adopted a regularized least squares technique with…
Rather weak fossil magnetic fields in the radiative core can produce the solar tachocline if the field is poloidal and almost horizontal in the tachocline region, i.e. if the field is confined within the core. This particular field geometry…
Early helioseismic results have shown that the tachocline has a prolate shape. However, the models used in those studies constrained the tachocline to be either prolate or oblate. We use helioseismic data obtained from long time series…
At the base of the Sun's convective zone, a narrow shear layer called the tachocline separates strong latitudinal differential rotation above from nearly rigid rotation in the radiative zone below. The observed thinness of the tachocline is…
In this paper, we present a model for the effects of the tachocline on the differential rotation in the solar convection zone. The mathematical technique relies on the assumption that entropy is nearly constant ("well-mixed") in isorotation…
This article surveys the development of observational understanding of the interior rotation of the Sun and its temporal variation over approximately forty years, starting with the 1960s attempts to determine the solar core rotation from…
The solar tachocline at the bottom of the convection zone is an important region for the dynamics of the Sun and the solar dynamo. In this region, the sound speed inferred by global helioseismology exhibits a bump of approximately 0.4%…
We provide a consistent theory of the tachocline confinement (or anisotropic momentum transport) within an hydrodynamical turbulence model. The goal is to explain helioseismological data, which show that the solar tachocline thickness is at…
Helioseismic inversions of the Sun's internal angular velocity profile show that the rotation changes from differential in latitude in the convection zone to almost uniform in the radiative region below. The transition occurs in a thin…
Using even-order frequency splitting coefficients of global p-modes it is possible to infer the magnetic field in the solar interior as a function of radial distance and latitude. Results obtained using GONG and MDI data are discussed.…
Solar active regions, produced by the emergence of tubes of strong magnetic field in the photosphere, are restricted to within 35 degrees of the solar equator. The nature of the dynamo processes that create and renew these fields, and are…