Properties of the solar acoustic source inferred from nonadiabatic oscillation spectra

Severino et al. suggested in 2001 that observed power and cross spectra of medium-degree p-modes in velocity and intensity can be described by splitting the solar background noise into correlated, coherent, and uncoherent components. We account for the nonadiabatic nature of solar oscillations by including the perturbations of the radiative energy flux in our model for the oscillations. Our calculations show the potential to explain the observations without the ad hoc phase differences between velocity and intensity oscillations introduced in the model of Severino et al. The phases and amplitudes of the correlated noise components are obtained by fitting our nonadiabatic model to the SOHO MDI power and cross spectra. These parameters provide information about the p-mode excitation process. We show that the type and location of the source can not be uniquely determined by the properties of the resonant p-modes in power and cross spectra of velocity and intensity oscillations. However, we obtain estimates for the phases and amplitudes of the correlated noise, which we interpret in terms of isolated rapid downdrafts in intergranular lanes. This idea is supported by three-dimensional simulations of the upper solar convection zone.