Local helioseismology consists of methods which study the propagation of the waves through the solar interior. The properties of the waves encode conditions in the plasma along their propagation trajectories. Local helioseismology allows us to learn about these conditions. The principal method utilised in this thesis is the time-distance local helioseismology. The time-distance method is based on measurements of travel times of the waves, hence it is sensitive especially to plasma flows and sound-speed perturbations, to which we focus. We utilised the inverse modelling, mainly using subtractive optimally localised averaging method with a minimisation of the cross-talk. This method was modified to allow for a simultaneous inversion of vector flows and sound-speed perturbation. This combination makes use of both the difference and the mean point-to-annulus averaging geometries of wave travel times in both the ridge and the phase-speed filtering approaches. The combined inversion provides us with more information about the inverted quantities. Moreover, the user can control the cross-talk and other important mathematical properties of the objects involved. The modified methodology was thoroughly tested. The main results may be summarised in five points. First, for successful inversions of the sound-speed...

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Diese Dissertation befasst sich mit Beobachtungen von konvektiven Strömungen in der Sonne, und insbesondere mit den Auswirkungen der Rotation auf diese Strömungen auf der Längenskala von Supergranulation und größeren Skalen (>30 Mm). Die Rotation der Sonne verursacht durch die Corioliskraft Wirbelströmungen und bewirkt anisotrope Korrelationen der Geschwindigkeitskomponenten. Man nimmt an, dass diese Korrelationen die Dynamik der Sonne auf großen Längenskalen beeinflussen. Um horizontale Strömungen zu messen, untersuchen wir photosphärische Aufnahmen der Doppler-Geschwindigkeit und der Kontinuumsintensität des ``Helioseismic and Magnetic Imagers'' (HMI) an Bord der Raumsonde ``Solar Dynamics Observatory'' (SDO) mit Hilfe der Methoden Time-Distance-Helioseismologie (TD) und Local Correlation Tracking (LCT) von Granulen. Im Rahmen der Time-Distance-Helioseismologie kann die lokale vertikale Vortizität gemessen werden, indem die Differenz von Wellenlaufzeiten entlang eines geschlossenen Weges ermittelt wird (Laufzeiten gegen den Uhrzeigersinn minus Laufzeiten im Uhrzeigersinn). Die Ergebnisse von TD und LCT stimmen bis zu den höchsten studierten Breitengraden (+/-60°) hervorragend überein, nachdem eine Korrektur für so genannte Center-to-Limb-Effekte angewandt wurde. Nach dem Mitteln in Ost-West-Richtung messen wir abseits des Äquators eine schwache, aber signifikante Korrelation zwischen der horizontalen Komponente der Divergenz und der vertikalen Komponente der Vortizität von supergranularen Strömungen. Ein Vergleich der Messungen mit einem Modell für das Rauschen offenbart, dass die TD-Methode verwendet werden kann, um die vertikale Vortizität von Strömungen auf Längenskalen größer als 15 Mm zu messen. Damit können mit dieser Methode nicht nur Strömungen in Supergranulen, sondern auch in Riesenzellen gemessen werden. Wir stellen außerdem fest, dass das Signal in Messungen der vertikalen Vortizität mit Hilfe von Aufnahmen von SDO/HMI sehr viel leichter detektiert werden kann als mit Hilfe von früheren Aufnahmen. Um den Einfluss der Sonnenrotation auf die Supergranulation im Detail zu studieren, kartieren wir die vertikale Vortizität der Strömungen in der durchschnittlichen Supergranule. Die durchschnittliche Supergranule wird konstruiert, indem Tausende von einzelnen Supergranulen in einem bestimmten Breitengradbereich durch räumliche Verschiebungen zur Deckung gebracht werden. Damit lösen wir zum ersten Mal die vertikale Vortizität in Aus- und Einströmungen räumlich auf. In nördlichen Breiten sind Ausströmungen im Mittel mit einer Zirkulation im Uhrzeigersinn verbunden. Das Signal verschwindet am Äquator und hat in südlichen Breiten das umgekehrte Vorzeichen. Aus- und Einströmungen besitzen eine vertikale Vortizität mit entgegengesetzten Vorzeichen, wie es von Vorhersagen erwartet wird, die sich auf die Corioliskraft stützen. Es wird offenbar, dass der Vortizitätspeak in der durchschnittlichen supergranularen Ausströmung vergleichsweise ausgedehnt und schwach ist (Halbwertsbreite von 13 Mm und Spitzenwert von 4 x 10^{-6}/s im Uhrzeigersinn bei 40° nördlicher Breite), verglichen mit der durchschnittlichen Einströmung (Halbwertsbreite von 8 Mm und Spitzenwert von 8 x 10^{-6}/s gegen den Uhrzeigersinn). Darüberhinaus untersuchen wir mit SDO/HMI-Daten das Magnetfeld in den Einströmungen um die durchschnittliche Supergranule am Äquator herum. Die mittlere Stärke des Magnetfelds stellt sich als richtungsabhängig heraus: In westlicher Richtung (prograd) ist das Netzwerkfeld ungefähr 10% stärker als in östlicher Richtung. Dieses überraschende Ergebnis fügt dem Rätsel um die Supergranulation einen weiteren Aspekt hinzu. Ob ein Zusammenhang mit anderen bekannten Eigenschaften der Supergranulation besteht (beispielsweise zur Superrotation des supergranularen Strömungsmusters oder zu wellenartigen Eigenschaften), ist nicht geklärt.

When studying astrophysical structures with sizes ranging from dwarf galaxies to galaxy clusters, it becomes clear that there are vast amounts of unobservable gravitating mass. A compelling hypothesis is that this missing mass, which we call dark matter, consists of elementary particles that can be described in the same manner as those of the standard model of particle physics. This thesis is dedicated to the study of particle dark matter in astrophysical systems. The solar composition problem refers to the current mismatch between theoretical predictions and observations of the solar convection zone depth and sound speed profile. It has been shown that heat transfer by dark matter in the Sun may cool the solar core and alleviate the problem. We discuss solar capture of a self-interacting Dirac fermion dark matter candidate and show that, even though particles and antiparticles annihilate, the abundance of such a particle may be large enough to influence solar physics. Currently, direct and indirect methods are employed in searches for dark matter. In this context, we study inelastic dark matter, where a small mass splitting separates two dark matter particles and scattering takes one into the other. This affects the scattering kinematics, which in turn affects direct detection and solar capture rates. We also discuss the information contained in a direct detection signal and how it can be used to infer a minimal solar capture rate of dark matter. When comparing simulated dark matter halos with collisionless dark matter with dark matter halos inferred from observations, problems appear in the smallest structures. A proposed solution is self-interacting dark matter with long range forces. As the simplest models are under severe constraints, we study self-interactions in a model of inelastic dark matter. / <p>QC 20170309</p>

Astronomy and music are both fundamental to cultural identity in the form of various musical styles and calendrical systems. However, since both are governed by incontrovertible laws of physics and therefore precede cultural interpretation, they are potentially useful for insight into the common ground of a shared humanity. This paper discusses three compositions inspired by different aspects of astronomy: Solstitium e Equinoctium, a site-specific composition for four voices and metal pipes involving an inclusive communal musical ritual and sonic meditation; Helios, a short symphonic work inspired by helioseismology; and Perspectives, a piece for soprano and percussion based on a logarithmic map of the universe.

The Sun, by the virtue of its proximity to Earth, serves as an excellent astrophysical laboratory for testing our theoretical ideas. The Sun displays a plethora of visually awe-inspiring phenomena including flares, prominences, sunspots, corona, CMEs and uncountable others. It is now known that it is the magnetic field of the Sun which governs all these and also the geomagnetic storms at the Earth, which owes its presence to the interaction between the geomagnetic field and the all-pervading Solar magnetic field in the interplanetary medium. Since the solar magnetic field affects the interplanetary space around the Earth in a profound manner, it is absolutely essential that we develop a comprehensive understanding of the generation and manifestation of magnetic fields of the Sun. This thesis aims at developing a state-of-the-art dynamo code SURYA1taking into account important results from helioseismology and magnetohydrodynamics. This dynamo code is then used to study various phenomenon associated with solar activity including evolution of solar parity, response to stochastic fluctuations, helicity of active regions and prediction of future solar cycles. Within last few years dynamo theorists seem to have reached a consensus on the basic characteristics of a solar dynamo model. The solar dynamo is now believed to be comprised of three basic processes: (i)The toroidal field is produced by stretching of poloidal field lines primarily inside the tachocline – the region of strong radial shear at the bottom of the convection zone. (ii) The toroidal field so formed rises to the surface due to magnetic buoyancy to form active regions. (iii) Poloidal field is generated at the surface due to decay of tilted active regions – an idea attributed to Babcock (1961) & Leighton (1969). The meridional circulation then carries the poloidal field produced near the surface to the tachocline. The profile of the solar differential rotation has now been mapped by helioseismology and so has been the poleward branch of meridional circulation near the surface. The model I describe in this thesis is a two-dimensional kinematic solar dynamo model in a full sphere. Our dynamo model Surya was developed over the years in stages by Prof. Arnab Rai Choudhuri, Dr. Mausumi Dikpati, Dr. Dibyendu Nandy and myself. We provide all the technical details of our model in Chap. 2 of this thesis. In this model we assume the equatorward branch of the meridional circulation (which hasn’t been observed yet), to penetrate slightly below the tachocline (Nandy & Choudhuri 2002, Science, 296, 1671). Such a meridional circulation plays an important role in suppressing the magnetic flux eruptions at high latitudes. The only non-linearity included in the model is the prescription of magnetic buoyancy. Our model is shown to reproduce various aspects of observational data, including the phase relation between sunspots and the weak, efficient. An important characteristic of our code is that it displays solar-like dipolar parity (anti-symmetric toroidal fields across equator) when certain reasonable conditions are satisfied, the most important condition being the requirement that the poloidal field should diffuse efficiently to get coupled across the equator. When the magnetic coupling between the hemispheres is enhanced by either increasing the diffusion or introducing an α ff distributed throughout the convection zone, we find that the solutions in the two hemispheres evolve together with a single period even when we make the meridional circulation or the α effect different in the two hemispheres. The effect of diffusive coupling in our model is investigated in Chap. 3. After having explored the regular behaviour of the solar cycle using the dynamo code we proceed to study the irregularities of the Solar cycle.We introduce stochastic fluctuations in the poloidal source term at the solar surface keeping the meridional circulation steady for all the numerical experiments. The dynamo displays oscillatory behaviour with variable cycle amplitudes in presence of fluctuations with amplitudes as large as 200%. We also find a statistically significant correlation between the strength of polar fields at the endofone cycle and the sunspot number of the next cycle. In contrast to this there exist a very poor correlation between the sunspot number of a cycle and the polar field formed at its end. This suggests that during the declining phase of the sunspot cycle poloidal field generation from decaying spots takes place via the Babcock-Leighton mechanism which involves randomness and destroys the correlation between sunspot number of a cycle and the polar at its end. In addition to this we also see that the time series of asymmetries in the sunspot activity follows the time series of asymmetries in the polar field strength with a lag of 5 years. We also compare our finding with available observational data. Although systematic measurements of the Sun’s polar magnetic field exist only from mid-1970s, other proxies can be used to infer the polar field at earlier times. The observational data indicate a strong correlation between the polar field at a sunspot minimum and the strength of the next cycle, although the strength of the cycle is not correlated well with the polar field produced at its end. We use these findings about the correlation of polar fields with sunspots to develop an elegant method for predicting future solar cycles. We feed observational data for polar fields during the minima of cycle n into our dynamo model and run the code till the next minima in order to simulate the sunspot number curve for cycle n+1. Our results fit the observed sunspot numbers of cycles 21-23 reasonably well and predict that cycle 24 will be about 30–35% weaker than cycle 23. We fit that the magnetic diffusivity in the model plays an important role in determining the magnetic memory of the Solar dynamo. For low diffusivity, the amplitude of a sunspot cycle appears to be a complex function of the history of the polar field of earlier cycles. Only if the magnetic diffusivity within the convection zone is assumed to be high (of order 1012cms−1), we are able to explain the correlation between the polar fiat a minimum and the next cycle. We give several independent arguments that the diffusivity must be of this order. In a dynamo model with diffusivity like this, the poloidal field generated at the mid-latitudes is advected toward the poles by the meridional circulation and simultaneously diffuses towards the tachocline, where the toroidal field for the next cycle is produced. The above ideas are put forward in Chap. 6. We next come to an important product of the dynamo process namely the magnetic helicity. It has been shown independently by many research groups that the mean value of the normalized current helicity αp= B (Δ×B)/B2in solar active regions is of the order of 10−8m−1, predominantly negative in the northern hemisphere, positive in the southern hemisphere. Choudhuri (2003, Sol. Phys., 215, 31)developed a model for production of the helicity of the required sign in a Babcock-Leighton Dynamo by wrapping of poloidal field lines around a fluxtube rising through the convection zone. In Chap. 7 we calculate helicities of solar active regions based on this idea. Rough estimates based on this idea compare favourably with the observed magnitude of helicity. We use our solar dynamo model to study how helicity varies with latitude and time. At the time of solar maximum, our theoretical model gives negative helicity in the northern hemisphere and positive helicity in the south, in accordance with observed hemispheric trends. However, we fit that during a short interval at the beginning of a cycle, helicities tend to be opposite of the preferred hemispheric trends. After calculating the sign and magnitude of helicity of the sunspots we worry about the distribution of helicity inside a sunspot. In Chap. 8 we model the penetration of a wrapped up background poloidal field into a toroidal magnetic flux tube rising through the solar convective zone. The rise of the straight, cylindrical flux tube is followed by numerically solving the induction equation in a comoving Lagrangian frame, while an external poloidal magnetic field is assumed to be radially advected onto the tube with a speed corresponding to the rise velocity. One prediction of our model is the existence of a ring of reverse current helicity on the periphery of active regions. On the other hand, the amplitude of the resulting twist depends sensitively on the assumed structure (ffvs. concentrated/intermittent) of the active region magnetic field right before its emergence, and on the assumed vertical profile of the poloidal field. Nevertheless, in the model with the most plausible choice of assumptions a mean twist comparable to the observational results. Our results indicate that the contribution of this mechanism to the twist can be quite find under favourable circumstances it can potentially account for most of the current helicity observed in active regions.

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