Constraining Global Solar Models through Helioseismic Analysis

Global hydrodynamic simulations of internal solar dynamics have focused on replicating the conditions for solar-like (equator rotating faster than the poles) differential rotation and meridional circulation using the results of helioseismic inversions as a constraint. Inferences of meridional circulation, however, have provided controversial results showing the possibility of one, two, or multiple cells along the radius. To help address this controversy and develop a more robust understanding of global flow regimes in the solar interior, we apply a “forward-modeling” approach to the analysis of helioseismic signatures of meridional circulation profiles obtained from numerical simulations. We employ the global acoustic modeling code GALE to simulate the propagation of acoustic waves through regimes of mean mass-flows generated by global hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic models: EULAG, the Pencil code, and the Rayleigh code. These models are used to create synthetic Dopplergram data products, used as inputs for local time-distance helioseismology techniques. Helioseismic travel-time signals from solutions obtained through global numerical simulations are compared directly with inferences from solar observations, in order to set additional constraints on global model parameters in a direct way. We show that even though these models are able to replicate solar-like differential rotation, the resulting rotationally constrained convection develops a multicell global meridional circulation profile that is measurably inconsistent with local time-distance inferences of solar observations. However, we find that the development of rotationally unconstrained convection close to the model surface is able to maintain solar-like differential rotation, while having a significant impact on the helioseismic travel-time signal, replicating solar observations within one standard deviation of the error due to noise.