F-Mode Eikonal Heliotomography

Abstract:

We investigate 5 days of Doppler measurements geo-tracked for a sunspot. The data is cross -correlated to create time-distance impulse responses of wave propagation in the plasma. We focus on imaging the f-mode (surface gravity mode), which is separated from the other modes by k-ω filtering.

Recent developments for surface wave imaging in earth-seismology include the development of an eikonal tomography technique. Eikonal tomography relies on evaluation of the local spatial derivatives of a traveltime surface to directly infer the slowness of wave-propagation.

Whereas earth-seismology relies on increasing high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by cross-correlating long-time series, helioseismology relies on stacking over geometrically similar virtual sources. We assume there are two symmetries in the geometry of virtual sources around a sunspot. The first is a radial symmetry centered at the sunspot. The second is a radial symmetry of propagation around each virtual source. Because we are interested in the effect of sunspots on wave-propagation, we keep the averaging along the second symmetry axis to a minimum, and rely heavily on averaging each virtual source with equal distance from the sunspot.

We will investigate the spatial variation of f-mode dispersion in a radial geometry with the sunspot at the center by creating f-mode velocity maps at different frequencies.