Quasi full-disk maps of solar horizontal velocities using SDO/HMI data

• Main Authors: Roudier, Th, Rieutord, M, Malherbe, J. M, Renon, N, Berger, T, Frank, Z, Prat, V, Gizon, L, Svanda, M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 02-03-2012
• Subjects: Physics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics; Physics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1203.0514

For the first time, the motion of granules (solar plasma on the surface on
scales larger than 2.5 Mm) has been followed over the entire visible surface of
the Sun, using SDO/HMI white-light data.
Horizontal velocity fields are derived from image correlation tracking using
a new version of the coherent structure tracking algorithm.The spatial and
temporal resolutions of the horizontal velocity map are 2.5 Mm and 30 min
respectively .
From this reconstruction, using the multi-resolution analysis, one can obtain
to the velocity field at different scales with its derivatives such as the
horizontal divergence or the vertical component of the vorticity. The intrinsic
error on the velocity is ~0.25 km/s for a time sequence of 30 minutes and a
mesh size of 2.5 Mm.This is acceptable compared to the granule velocities,
which range between 0.3 km/s and 1.8 km/s. A high correlation between
velocities computed from Hinode and SDO/HMI has been found (85%). From the data
we derive the power spectrum of the supergranulation horizontal velocity field,
the solar differential rotation, and the meridional velocity.