Solar east-west flow correlations that persist for months at low latitudes are dominated by active region inflows

Context. Giant-cell convection is believed to be an important component of solar dynamics. For example, it is expected to play a crucial role in maintaining the Sun's differential rotation.
Aims: We reexamine early reports of giant convective cells detected using a correlation analysis of Dopplergrams. We extend this analysis using 19 years of space- and ground-based observations of near-surface horizontal flows.
Methods: Flow maps are derived through the local correlation tracking of granules and helioseismic ring-diagram analysis. We compute temporal auto-correlation functions of the east-west flows at fixed latitude.
Results: Correlations in the east-west velocity can be clearly seen up to five rotation periods. The signal consists of features with longitudinal wavenumbers up to m = 9 at low latitudes. Comparison with magnetic images indicates that these flow features are associated with magnetic activity. The signal is not seen above the noise level during solar minimum.
Conclusions: Our results show that the long-term correlations in east-west flows at low latitudes are predominantly due to inflows into active regions and not to giant convective cells.