No Arabic abstract
Using full-disk observations obtained with the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, we present variations of the solar acoustic mode frequencies caused by the solar activity cycle. High-degree (100 < l < 900) solar acoustic modes were analyzed using global helioseismology analysis techniques over most of solar cycle 23. We followed the methodology described in details in Korzennik, Rabello-Soares and Schou (2004) to infer unbiased estimates of high-degree mode parameters (see also Rabello-Soares, Korzennik and Schou, 2006). We have removed most of the known instrumental and observational effects that affect specifically high-degree modes. We show that the high-degree changes are in good agreement with the medium-degree results, except for years when the instrument was highly defocused. We analyzed and discuss the effect of defocusing on high degree estimation. Our results for high-degree modes confirm that the frequency shift scaled by the relative mode inertia is a function of frequency and it is independent of degree.
The variability of the spectral solar irradiance (SSI) over the course of the 11-year solar cycle is one of the manifestations of solar magnetic activity. There is a strong evidence that the SSI variability has an effect on the Earths atmosphere. The faster rotation of the Sun in the past lead to a more vigorous action of solar dynamo and thus potentially to larger amplitude of the SSI variability on the timescale of the solar activity cycle. This could led to a stronger response of the Earths atmosphere as well as other solar system planets atmospheres to the solar activity cycle. We calculate the amplitude of the SSI and TSI variability over the course of the solar activity cycle as a function of solar age. We employ the relationship between the stellar magnetic activity and the age based on observations of solar twins. Using this relation we reconstruct solar magnetic activity and the corresponding solar disk area coverages by magnetic features (i.e. spots and faculae) over the last four billion years. These disk coverages are then used to calculate the amplitude of the solar-cycle SSI variability as a function of wavelength and solar age. Our calculations show that the young Sun was significantly more variable than the present Sun. The amplitude of the solar-cycle Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) variability of the 600 Myr old Sun was about 10 times larger than that of the present Sun. Furthermore, the variability of the young Sun was spot-dominated (the Sun being brighter at the activity minimum than in the maximum), i.e. the Sun was overall brighter at activity minima than at maxima. The amplitude of the TSI variability decreased with solar age until it reached a minimum value at 2.8 Gyr. After this point, the TSI variability is faculae-dominated (the Sun is brighter at the activity maximum) and its amplitude increases with age.
We investigate the characteristics and the sources of the slow (< 450 km/s) solar wind during the four years (2006-2009) of low solar activity between Solar Cycles 23 and 24. We use a comprehensive set of in-situ observations in the near-Earth solar wind (Wind and ACE) and remove the periods when large-scale interplanetary coronal mass ejections were present. The investigated period features significant variations in the global coronal structure, including the frequent presence of low-latitude active regions in 2006-2007, long-lived low- and mid-latitude coronal holes in 2006 - mid-2008 and mostly the quiet Sun in 2009. We examine both Carrington Rotation averages of selected solar plasma, charge state and compositional parameters and distributions of these parameters related to Quiet Sun, Active Region Sun and the Coronal Hole Sun. While some of the investigated parameters (e.g., speed, the C^{+6}/C^{+4} and He/H ratio) show clear variations over our study period and with solar wind source type, some (Fe/O) exhibit very little changes. Our results highlight the difficulty in distinguishing between the slow solar wind sources based on the inspection of the solar wind conditions.
We studied the radiative properties of small magnetic elements (active region faculae and the network) during the rising phase of solar cycle 23 from 1996 to 2001, determining their contrasts as a function of heliocentric angle, magnetogram signal, and the solar cycle phase. We combined near-simultaneous full disk images of the line-of-sight magnetic field and photospheric continuum intensity provided by the MDI instrument on board the SOHO spacecraft. Sorting the magnetogram signal into different ranges allowed us to distinguish between the contrast of different magnetic structures. We find that the contrast center-to-limb variation (CLV) of these small magnetic elements is independent of time with a 10% precision, when measured during the rising phase of solar cycle 23. A 2-dimensional empirical expression for the contrast of photospheric features as a function of both the position on the disk and the averaged magnetic field strength was determined, showing its validity through the studied time period. A study of the relationship between magnetogram signal and the peak contrasts shows that the intrinsic contrast (maximum contrast per unit of magnetic flux) of network flux tubes is higher than that of active region faculae during the solar cycle.
We explore the link between solar energetic particles (SEPs) observed at 1 AU and large-scale disturbances propagating in the solar corona, named after the Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) as EIT waves, which trace the lateral expansion of a coronal mass ejection (CME). A comprehensive search for SOHO/EIT waves was carried out for 179 SEP events during Solar Cycle 23 (1997-2006). 87% of the SEP events were found to be accompanied by EIT waves. In order to test if the EIT waves play a role in the SEP acceleration, we compared their extrapolated arrival time at the footpoint of the Parker spiral with the particle onset in the 26 eastern SEP events that had no direct magnetic connection to the Earth. We find that the onset of proton events was generally consistent with this scenario. However, in a number of cases the first near-relativistic electrons were detected too early. Furthermore, the electrons had in general only weakly anisotropic pitch-angle distributions. This poses a problem for the idea that the SEPs were accelerated by the EIT wave or in any other spatially confined region in the low corona. The presence of weak electron anisotropies in SEP events from the eastern hemisphere suggests that transport processes in interplanetary space, including cross-field diffusion, play a role in giving the SEPs access to a broad range of helio-longitudes.
The data of sunspot numbers, sunspot areas and solar flare index during cycle 23 are analyzed to investigate the intermediate-term periodicities. Power spectral analysis has been performed separately for the data of the whole disk, northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun. Several significant midrange periodicities ($sim$175, 133, 113, 104, 84, 63 days) are detected in sunspot activity. Most of the periodicities in sunspot numbers generally agree with those of sunspot areas during the solar cycle 23. The study reveals that the periodic variations in the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun show a kind of asymmetrical behavior. Periodicities of $sim$175 days and $sim$133 days are highly significant in the sunspot data of northern hemisphere showing consistency with the findings of Lean (1990) during solar cycles 12-21. On the other hand, southern hemisphere shows a strong periodicity of about 85 days in terms of sunspot activity. The analysis of solar flare index data of the same time interval does not show any significant peak. The different periodic behavior of sunspot and flare activity can be understood in the light of hypothesis proposed by Ballester et al. (2002), which suggests that during cycle 23, the periodic emergence of magnetic flux partly takes place away from developed sunspot groups and hence may not necessarily increase the magnetic complexity of sunspot groups that leads to the generation of flares.