Solar Activity Phases and Intermediate-degree Mode Frequencies

TL;DR

This study investigates how intermediate-degree solar p-mode frequencies vary with the solar activity cycle, revealing phase-dependent correlations with different magnetic activity proxies and emphasizing the influence of both strong and weak magnetic field components.

Contribution

The paper provides a detailed phase-wise analysis of the correlation between solar oscillation frequencies and magnetic activity proxies over a complete solar cycle, highlighting the differential influence of magnetic field components.

Findings

Frequency shifts correlate strongly with activity proxies during rising and declining phases.

High-activity periods show lower correlation with proxies influenced by strong magnetic fields.

Over 90% of frequency variation can be explained by changes in magnetic field components.

Abstract

We analyze intermediate degree p-mode eigenfrequencies measured by GONG and MDI/SOHO over a solar cycle to study the source of their variability. We carry out a correlation analysis between the change in frequencies and several measures of the Sun's magnetic activity that are sensitive to changes at different levels in the solar atmosphere. The observations span a period of about 12 years starting from mid-1996 (the minimum of cycle 23) to early-2008 (near minimum of cycle 24), corresponding to a nearly complete solar activity cycle. We demonstrate that the frequencies do vary in phase with the solar activity indices, however the degree of correlation differs from phase to phase of the cycle. During the rising and declining phases, the mode frequency shifts are strongly correlated with the activity proxies whereas during the high-activity period, the shifts have significantly lower correlation with all activity proxies, except for the 10.7-cm radio flux. In particular, the proxies that are only influenced by the variation of the strong component of the magnetic field in the photosphere have a much lower correlation at the high-activity period. On the other hand, the shifts are better correlated with the proxies sensitive to changes in the weak component of the magnetic field. Our correlation analysis suggests that more than 90% of the variation in the oscillation frequencies in all activity phases can be explained by changes in both components of the magnetic field. Further, the slopes obtained from the linear regression analysis also differ from phase to phase and show a strong correlation with the correlation coefficients between frequency shifts and solar activity.