Solar inertial modes: Observations, identification, and diagnostic promise

Observations and Models of Inertial Waves

The structure of the inertial peak in deep ocean kinetic energy spectra is studied here. Records were obtained from Polymode arrays deployed in the Western North Atlantic Ocean (4 00W to 70 0 W, 15 0 N to 42oN). The results are interpreted both in terms of local sources and of turning point effects on internal waves generated at lower latitudes. In most of the data, there is a prominent inertia...

Inertial modes in a rotating triaxial ellipsoid.

In this work, we present an algorithm that enables computation of inertial modes and their corresponding frequencies in a rotating triaxial ellipsoid. The method consists of projecting the inertial mode equation onto finite-dimensional bases of polynomial vector fields. It is shown that this leads to a well-posed eigenvalue problem, and hence, that eigenmodes are of polynomial form. Furthermore...

Inertial modes of slowly rotating isentropic stars

We investigate inertial mode oscillations of slowly and uniformly rotating, isentropic, Newtonian stars. Inertial mode oscillations are induced by the Coriolis force due to the star’s rotation, and their characteristic frequencies are comparable with the rotation frequency Ω of the star. So called r-mode oscillations form a sub-class of the inertial modes. In this paper, we use the term “r-mode...

Seismology of solar spicules based on Hinode/SOT observations

Damping and excitation variations of the solar acoustic modes using LOWL observations

We have used observations made with the helioseismic instrument LOWL collected over ∼ 6 years to carry out an independent study of the variations of the p-mode damping and excitation rates with solar activity. We observe significant variations in the mode height, mode width and mode velocity power over a wide range of angular degree values. Their sensitivities to solar activity show clear evide...