A photometric search for solar giant convection cells |
| |
| Authors: | W -H Chiang L D Petro P V Foukal |
| |
| Institution: | (1) Atmospheric and Environmental Research Inc., 840 Memorial Drive, 02139 Cambridge, U.S.A.;(2) Cambridge Research and Instrumentation, Inc., 20 Erie Street, 02139 Cambridge, U.S.A. |
| |
| Abstract: | We limit the photometric contrast of solar giant convection cells using  525.6 nm continuum images obtained on 15 days in May 1985. The r.m.s. of the giant cell intensity pattern must be less than or equal to the observed r.m.s. on spatial scales 80 to 240 Mm which is 0.023% or, equivalently, 0.33 K. However, the spatial scale and time-scale dependence of the variance demonstrate that giant cells are not the source of the observed variance. Consequently, a tighter constraint on the r.m.s. of the giant cell pattern may be placed, namely 0.016% or 0.23 K. This limit is consistent with temperature perturbations estimated from recent nonlinear simulations of global-scale solar convection. We use this limit on the r.m.s. of the giant cell pattern to estimate that the contribution of giant cells to the fluctuation of the solar irradiance on a one-month time-scale is less than 3 × 10–5 S. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
| 本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录！ |
|
