Helioseismic Inversions applied to a Realistic MHD Sunspot Simulation
Abstract
Local helioseismology applied to the realistic magneto-convection sunspot simulations of Rempel et al. produces solar-like wave travel times. We apply standard ray-theory based inversions to infer subsurface wave speed from these travel times. We find that the inferred wave-speed perturbations are similar to the wave-speed perturbations found from the analysis of typical sunspots observed with MDI. We show, however, that the ray theory inversions fail to retrieve the true time-averaged sound speed or fast-mode speed from the simulations. We propose some alternative strategies for inferring the subsurface structure of sunspots.
This work is supported by NASA contracts NNH09CE41C and NNG07EI51C.- Publication:
-
AAS/Solar Physics Division Meeting #40
- Pub Date:
- May 2009
- Bibcode:
- 2009SPD....40.0713B