Sun's Seismic Radius as Measured from the Fundamental Modes of Oscillations and its Implications for the TSI Variations

TL;DR

This study investigates the relationship between the Sun's seismic radius and total solar irradiance over two solar cycles, finding a weak anti-correlation and concluding radius changes are insufficient to explain TSI variations.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of the seismic radius's variation during solar cycles using fundamental mode oscillations from space-borne data.

Findings

Seismic radius varies by about 5 km over a solar cycle.

TSI increases as seismic radius decreases, but the correlation is weak.

Radius changes cannot fully account for TSI variations.

Abstract

In this letter, we explore the relationship between the solar seismic radius and total solar irradiance (TSI) during last two solar cycles using the uninterrupted data from space-borne instruments onboard {\it SoHO} and {\it SDO}. The seismic radius is calculated from the fundamental ({\it f}) modes of solar oscillations utilizing the observations from {\it SoHO}/MDI and {\it SDO}/HMI, and the total solar irradiance measurements are obtained from {\it SoHO}/VIRGO. Our study suggests that the major contribution to the TSI variation arises from the changes in magnetic field while the radius variation plays a secondary role. We find that the solar irradiance increases with decreasing seismic radius, however the anti-correlation between them is moderately weak. The estimated maximum change in seismic radius during a solar cycle is about 5 kilometers, and is consistent in both solar cycles 23 and 24. Previous studies suggest a radius change at the surface of the order of 0.06 arcsecond to explain the 0.1\% variation in the TSI values during the solar cycle, however our inferred seismic radius change is significantly smaller, hence the TSI variations can not be fully explained by the temporal changes in seismic radius.