An Introduction to Waves and Oscillations in the Sun

by A. Satya Narayanan

Overview

“An Introduction to Waves and Oscillations in the Sun” is intended for students and researchers who work in the area of solar and astrophysics. This book contains an introduction to the Sun, basics of electrodynamics, magneto-hydrodynamics for force-free and current-free fields. It deals with waves in uniform media with relevance to sound waves and Alfven waves, and with waves in non-uniform media like surface waves or waves in a slab and cylindrical geometry. It also touches on instabilities in fluids and observational signatures of oscillations. Finally, there is an introduction to the area of helio-seismology, which deals with the internal structure of the Sun.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781489995964
Publisher:	Springer New York
Publication date:	10/15/2014
Series:	Astronomy and Astrophysics Library
Edition description:	2013
Pages:	222
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.02(d)

About the Author

Dr. A. Satya Narayanan is a faculty member at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, India. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India in 1982. He was one of the Mathematicians selected for the prestigious Research Scientist position by the UGC, India, in the year 1984. He joined the Indian Institute of Astrophysics as a visiting fellow in 1990 and is presently an Associate Professor.

Dr. Narayanan has published many papers in reputed and refereed journals (both national as well as international). He has visited many countries in Europe, the U. K., Japan, and Singapore to attend meetings as well as to deliver lectures. He is one of the editors of the conference proceedings for a spectroscopy meeting held at Kodaikanal, India, in 2009, published by Springer-Verlag.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction.- 1.1: Historical Perspectives.- 1.2: The Core of the Sun.- 1.3: Radiative Zone.- 1.4: Convection Zone.- 1.5: Photosphere.- 1.6: Chromosphere.- 1.7: Corona.- 1.8: Solar Wind.- Chapter 2: Electro-Magneto Statics.- 2.1: Charge and Current Distributions.- 2.2: Coulomb's Law.- 2.3: Gauss's Law.- 2.4: Ampere's Law.- 2.5: Faraday's Law.- 2.6: Vector Magnetic Potential.- 2.7: Maxwell's Equations.- Chapter 3: MHD Equations and Concepts.- 3.1: Assumptions.- 3.2: Dimensionless Parameters.- 3.3: Mass Continuity.- 3.4: Equations of Motion.- 3.5: Energy Equation.- 3.6: MHD Equilibrium.- 3.7: Magnetic Flux Tubes.- 3.8: Current-free (Potential) fields.- 3.9: Force-Free Fields.- 3.10: Parker's Solution for Solar Wind.- Chapter 4: Waves in Uniform Media.- 4.1: Basic Equations.- 4.2: SoundWaves.- 4.3: Alfv'enWaves.- 4.4: Shear Alfv'enWaves.- 4.5: Compressional Alfv'enWaves.- 4.6: Magneto acoustic Waves.- 4.7: Internal and Magneto acoustic Gravity Waves.- 4.8: Phase-Mixing and Resonant Absorption of Waves.- Chapter 5: Waves in Non-Uniform Media- 5.1: Waves at Magnetic Interface.- 5.2: Surface and InterfacialWaves.- 5.3: Waves in a Magnetic Slab.- 5.4: Waves in Cylindrical Geometries.- 5.5: Waves in Untwisted and Twisted Tubes.- Chapter 6: Instabilities.- 6.1: Introduction.- 6.2: Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) Instability.- 6.3: Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) Instability.- 6.4: Parametric Instability.- 6.5: Parker Instability.- Chapter 7: Waves in the Sun.- 7.1: Five minute oscillations.- 7.2: Oscillations in Sunspots.- 7.3: Chromospheric Oscillations.- 7.4: CoronalWaves.- 7.5: Coronal Seismology.- 7.6: Coronal Heating due to Waves.- 7.7: EIT and MoretonWaves.- Chapter 8: Heliosesimology.- 8.1: Equations of Motion.- 8.2: Equilibrium Structure.- 8.3: Perturbation Analysis.- 8.4: Acoustic Waves.- 8.5: Internal Gravity Waves.- 8.6: Equations of Linear Stellar Oscillations.- 8.7: Properties of Solar Oscillations (Internal).- 8.8: p and g modes.- References.- Index.

Editorial Reviews

From the reviews:

“The book … give an introductory development of the theory of wave motion and oscillations in the sun and describe the experimental and observational work that has been done. … Much of the material in this book is presented at an introductory level that would be accessible to students in an advanced undergraduate or graduate course on the subject. … The book can … be a valuable resource for scientists at any level working in this area.” (Stephen Wollman, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1262, 2013)

From the Publisher