Angular Momentum Transport and Dynamo Action in the Sun: Implications of Recent Oscillation Measurements
Abstract
The implications of a newly proposed picture of the sun's internal rotation (Brown et al., 1989; Morrow, 1988) for the distribution and transport of angular momentum and for the solar dynamo are considered. The new results, derived from an analysis of solar acoustic oscillations, affect understanding of how momentum is cycled in the sun and provide clues as to how and where the solar dynamo is driven. The data imply that the only significant radial gradient of angular velocity exists in a transitional region between the bottom of the convection zone, which is rotating like the solar surface, and the top of the deep interior, which is rotating rigidly at a rate intermediate between the equatorial and polar rates at the surface. Thus the radial gradient must change sign at the latitude where the angular velocity of the surface matches that of the interior. These inferences suggest that the cycle of angular momentum that produces the observed latitudinal differential rotation in the convection zone may be coupled to layers of the interior beneath the convection zone.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- March 1989
- DOI:
- 10.1086/167215
- Bibcode:
- 1989ApJ...338..528G
- Keywords:
-
- Angular Momentum;
- Dynamo Theory;
- Magnetohydrodynamics;
- Solar Interior;
- Solar Oscillations;
- Solar Rotation;
- Momentum Transfer;
- Solar Velocity;
- Solar Physics;
- HYDROMAGNETICS;
- SUN: INTERIOR;
- SUN: OSCILLATIONS;
- SUN: ROTATION