J. M. Robillot

Global Oscillations at Low Frequency from the SOHO mission (GOLF)

The GOLF experiment on the SOHO mission aims to study the internal structure of the sun by measuring the spectrum of global oscillations in the frequency range 10−7 to 10−2 Hz. Bothp andg mode oscillations will be investigated, with the emphasis on the low order long period waves which penetrate the solar core. The instrument employs an extension to space of the proven ground-based technique for measuring the mean line-of-sight velocity of the viewed solar surface. By avoiding the atmospheric disturbances experienced from the ground, and choosing a non-eclipsing orbit, GOLF aims to improve the instrumental sensitivity limit by an order of magnitude to 1 mm s−1 over 20 days for frequencies higher than 2.10−4 Hz. A sodium vapour resonance cell is used in a longitudinal magnetic field to sample the two wings of the solar absorption line. The addition of a small modulating field component enables the slope of the wings to be measured. This provides not only an internal calibration of the instrument sensitivity, but also offers a further possibility to recognise, and correct for, the solar background signal produced by the effects of solar magnetically active regions. The use of an additional rotating polariser enables measurement of the mean solar line-of-sight magnetic field, as a secondary objective.

Looking for Gravity-Mode Multiplets with the GOLF Experiment aboard SOHO

This paper is focused on the search for low-amplitude solar gravity modes between 150 and 400 � Hz, corresponding to low-degree, low-order modes. It presents results based on an original strategy that looks for multiplets instead of single peaks, taking into consideration our knowledge of the solar interior from acoustic modes. Five years of quasi-continuous measurements collected with the helioseismic GOLF experiment aboard the SOHO spacecraft are analyzed. We use different power spectrum estimators and calculate confidence levels for the most significant peaks. This approach allows us to look for signals with velocities down to 2 mm s � 1 ,n ot far from the limit of existing instruments aboard SOHO, amplitudes that have never been investigated up to now. We apply the method to series of 1290 days, beginning in 1996 April, near the solar cycle minimum. An automatic detection algorithm lists those peaks and multiplets that have a probability of more than 90% of not being pure noise. The detected patterns are then followed in time, considering also series of 1768 and 2034 days, partly covering the solar cycle maximum. In the analyzed frequency range, the probability of detection of the multiplets does not increase with time as for very long lifetime modes. This is partly due to the observational conditions after 1998 October and the degradation of these observational conditions near the solar maximum, since these modes have a ‘‘mixed’’ character and probably behave as acoustic modes. Several structures retain our attention because of the presence of persistent peaks along the whole time span. These features may support the idea of an increase of the rotation in the inner core. There are good arguments for thinking that complementary observations up to the solar activity minimum in 2007 will be decisive for drawing conclusions on the presence or absence of gravity modes detected aboard the SOHO satellite.

Global solar Doppler velocity determination with the GOLF/SoHO instrument

The Global Oscillation at Low Frequencies (GOLF) experiment is a resonant scattering spectrophotometer on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SoHO) mission, originally designed to measure the disk-integrated solar oscillations of the Sun. This instrument was designed in a relative photometric mode involving both wings of the neutral sodium doublet (D1 at λ 5896 and D2 at λ 5890 A). However, a “one-wing” photometric mode has been selected to ensure 100% continuity in the measurements after a problem in the polarization mechanisms. Thus the velocity is obtained from only two points on the same wing of the lines. This operating configuration imposes tighter constraints on the stability of the instrument with a higher sensitivity to instrumental variations. In this paper we discuss the evolution of the instrument during the last 8 years in space and the corrections applied to the measured counting rates due to known instrumental effects. We also describe a scaling procedure to obtain the variation of the Doppler velocity based on our knowledge of the sodium profile slope and we compare it to previous velocity estimations.

A search for solar g modes in the GOLF data

With over 5 years of GOLF data having some 90% continuity, a new attempt has been made to search for possible solarg modes. Statistical methods are used, based on the minimum of assumptions regarding the solar physics; namely that mode line-widths are small compared with the inverse of the observing time, and that modes are sought in the frequency interval 150 to 400Hz. A number of simulations are carried out in order to understand the expected behaviour of a system consisting principally of a solar noise continuum overlaid with some weak sharp resonances. The method adopted is based on the FFT analysis of a time series with zero-padding by a factor of 5. One prominent resonance at 284.666Hz coincides with a previous tentative assignment as one member of an n = 1, l = 1, p-mode multiplet. Components of two multiplets, previously tentatively identified as possibleg-mode candidates from the GOLF data in 1998, continue to be found, although their statistical significance is shown to be insucient, within the present assumption regarding the nature of the signal. An upper limit to the amplitude of anyg mode present is calculated using two dierent statistical approaches, according to either the assumed absence (H0 hypothesis) or the assumed presence (H1 hypothesis) of a signal. The former yields a slightly lower limit of around 6 mm/s.

First View of the Solar Core from Golf Acoustic Modes

After 8 months of nearly continuous measurements the GOLF instrument, aboard SOHO, has detected acoustic mode frequencies of more than 100 modes, extending from 1.4 mHz to 4.9 mHz. In this paper, we compare these results with the best available predictions coming from solar models. To verify the quality of the data, we examine the asymptotic seismic parameters; this confirms the improvements achieved in solar models during the last decade.Using the GOLF set of frequencies for l=0, 1, 2, 3 combined with the LOWL second year data set for l > 3 we then carry out inversions to infer properties of the solar core.This largely confirms the previous results down to around 0.1 R⊙, while there remain differences, even closer to the centre, where the present study shows an extreme sensitivity of the inversion results to the values of the frequencies. We finally consider physical processes which may influence directly or indirectly the solar core structure.

Performance and Early Results from the GOLF Instrument Flown on the SOHO Mission

GOLF in-flight commissioning and calibration was carried out during the first four months, most of which represented the cruise phase of SOHO towards its final L1 orbit. The initial performance of GOLF is shown to be within the design specification, for the entire instrument as well as for the separate sub-systems. Malfunctioning of the polarising mechanisms after 3 to 4 months operation has led to the adoption of an unplanned operating sequence in which these mechanisms are no longer used. This mode, which measures only the blue wing of the solar sodium lines, detracts little from the detection and frequency measurements of global oscillations, but does make more difficult the absolute velocity calibration, which is currently of the order of 20%. Data continuity in the new mode is extremely high and the instrument is producing exceptionally noise-free p-mode spectra. The data set is particularly well suited to the study of effects due to the excitation mechanism of the modes, leading to temporal variations in their amplitudes. The g modes have not yet been detected in this limited data set. In the present mode of operation, there are no indications of any degradation which would limit the use of GOLF for up to 6 years or more.

First Results on it p Modes from GOLF Experiment

The GOLF experiment on the SOHO mission aims to study the internal structure of the Sun by measuring the spectrum of global oscillations in the frequency range 10-7 to 10-2 Hz. Here we present the results of the analysis of the first 8 months of data. Special emphasis is put into the frequency determination of the p modes, as well as the splitting in the multiplets due to rotation. For both, we show that the improvement in S/N level with respect to the ground-based networks and other experiments is essential in achieving a very low-degree frequency table with small errors ∼ 2 parts in 10-5). On the other hand, the splitting found seems to favour a solar core which does not rotate slower than its surface. The line widths do agree with theoretical expectations and other observations.

High-Frequency Peaks in the Power Spectrum of Solar Velocity Observations from the GOLF Experiment

The power spectrum of more than 630 days of full-disk solar velocity data, provided by the GOLF spectrophotometer aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, has revealed the presence of modelike structure well beyond the acoustic cutoff frequency for the solar atmosphere (νac ~5.4 mHz). Similar data produced by full-disk instruments deployed in Earth-based networks (BiSON and IRIS) had not shown any peak structure above νac: this is probably due to the higher levels of noise that are inherent in Earth-based experiments. We show that the observed peak structure (νac≤ν≤7.5 mHz) can be explained by a simple two-wave interference model if the high-frequency waves are partially reflected at the back side of the Sun.

Asymptotic g modes: Evidence for a rapid rotation of the solar core

We present the identification of very low frequency g modes in the asymptotic regime and two important parameters that have long been waited for: the core rotation rate, and the asymptotic equidistant period spacing of these g modes. The GOLF instrument on board the SOHO space observatory has provided two decades of full-disk helioseismic data. In the present study, we search for possible collective frequency modulations that are produced by periodic changes in the deep solar structure. Such modulations provide access to only very low frequency g modes, thus allowing statistical methods to take advantage of their asymptotic properties. For oscillatory periods in the range between 9 and nearly 48 hours, almost 100 g modes of spherical harmonic degree 1 and more than 100 g modes of degree 2 are predicted. They are not observed individually, but when combined, they unambiguouslyprovide their asymptotic period equidistance and rotational splittings, in excellent agreement with the requirements of the asymptotic approximations. Previously, p-mode helioseismology allowed the g-mode period equidistance parameter

Erratum: “Looking for Gravity-Mode Multiplets with the GOLF Experiment aboard SOHO” (ApJ, 604, 455 [2004])

P_0