What have we learned from helioseismology, what have we really learned, and what do we aspire to learn?

Abstract

Helioseismology has been widely acclaimed as having been a great success: it appears to have answered nearly all the questions that we originally asked, some with unexpectedly high precision. We have learned how the sound speed and matter density vary throughout almost all of the solar interior -- which not so very long ago was generally considered to be impossible -- we have learned how the Sun rotates, and we have a beautiful picture, on a coffee cup, of the thermal stratification of a sunspot, and also an indication of the material flow around it. We have tried, with some success at times, to apply our findings to issues of broader relevance: the test of the General Theory of Relativity via planetary orbit precession (now almost forgotten because the issue has convincingly been closed, albeit no doubt temporarily), the solar neutrino problem, the manner of the transport of energy from the centre to the surface of the Sun, the mechanisms of angular-momentum redistribution, and the workings of the solar dynamo. The first two were of general interest to the broad scientific community beyond astronomy, and were, quite rightly, principally responsible for our acclaimed success; the others are still in a state of flux.

to appear in Solar Physics

References in corpus (12)

• Primordial Nucleosynthesis in the Precision Cosmology Era
• Helioseismology and Solar Abundances
• An asteroseismic signature of helium ionization
• On the opacity change required to compensate for the revised solar composition
• Determining solar abundances using helioseismology
• Solar abundances and helioseismology: fine structure spacings and separation ratios of low-degree p modes
• Solar heavy element abundance: constraints from frequency separation ratios of low-degree p modes
• Temporal Variations in the Sun's Rotational Kinetic Energy
• Photospheric and Subphotospheric Dynamics of Emerging Magnetic Flux
• Helioseismic test of non-homologous solar radius changes with the 11-year activity cycle
• Traveling Waves of Magnetoconvection and the Origin of the Evershed Effect in Sunspots
• Dynamic screening correction for solar p-p reaction rates

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Global Seismology of the Sun
• Gravitational Anomalies in the Solar System?
• The Solar-Stellar Connection
• Waves in the lower solar atmosphere: the dawn of next-generation solar telescopes
• Seismic measurement of the locations of the base of convection zone and helium ionization zone for stars in the {\it Kepler} seismic LEGACY sample
• Updated values of solar gravitational moments $J_{2n}$ using HMI helioseismic inference of internal rotation
• Statistical analysis of acoustic wave parameters near active regions
• A $\nu$ look at the Sun: Probing the conditions of the solar core using ${}^8$B neutrinos