Cool Stars 14 - Submitted Abstract # 178
This version created on 05 October 2006

The direct modeling approach to measuring the Sun's meridional flow


Urmila Mitra-Kraev, University of Sheffield, UK
Martin F. Woodard, NorthWest Research Associates/CORA, Boulder, USA
Michael J. Thompson, University of Sheffield, UK

Meridional circulation may play a crucial role for the solar dynamo by
subducting old flux from the surface and transporting it down to the
tachocline region where new toroidal magnetic field may be generated.
So far, subsurface meridional flow has been measured using Hankel
analysis, ring-diagram analysis, and time-distance analysis.  The
first two of these helioseismic methods probe only the outermost
layers of the convection zone, while the time-distance method relies
on ray approximation.  We apply a new, wave-based, 'direct-modeling'
analysis, introduced by Woodard in 2002, to the problem of measuring
the turnover of the meridional flow deep inside the convection zone.

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