Sounding the Solar Cycle with Helioseismology: Implications for Asteroseismology

TL;DR

This paper reviews how helioseismology, especially low-degree p modes from Sun-as-a-star observations, can be used to understand the solar activity cycle and discusses implications for studying solar-type stars through asteroseismology.

Contribution

It emphasizes the application of helioseismology to solar cycle studies and explores how these methods can inform asteroseismic research of solar-like stars.

Findings

Helioseismology effectively tracks solar activity cycle variations.

Low-l p modes provide key insights into solar interior changes.

Implications for asteroseismology include improved stellar activity modeling.

Abstract

My brief for the IAC Winter School was to cover observational results on helioseismology, flagging where possible implications of those results for the asteroseismic study of solar-type stars. My desire to make such links meant that I concentrated largely upon results for low angular-degree (low-l) solar p modes, in particular results derived from "Sun-as-a-star" observations (which are of course most instructive for the transfer of experience from helioseismology to asteroseismology). The lectures covered many aspects of helioseismology - modern helioseismology is a diverse field. In these notes, rather than discuss each aspect to a moderate level of detail, I have instead made the decision to concentrate upon one theme, that of "sounding" the solar activity cycle with helioseismology. I cover the topics from the lectures and I also include some new material, relating both to the lecture topics and other aspects I did not have time to cover. Implications for asteroseismology are developed and discussed throughout.