[GTP] Seminar at NCAR, Steven Balbus ENS

[Silvia Gentile]

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Silvia Gentile
NCAR IMAGe


SEMINAR


Differential Rotation and Convection in the Sun
Steven Balbus
Radio Astrononmy Laboratory
École Normale Supérieure, Paris



The differential rotation profile of the solar convection zone (SCZ), 
apart from inner and outer boundary layers, can be accurately reproduced 
if the isorotation contours correspond to the characteristics of the 
vorticity equation in its thermal wind form.  The analytic structure of 
these characteristics is transparent, and surprisingly simple.
The very existence of the characteristics, however, requires that there 
be a formal functional relationship involving the entropy and the 
angular velocity. In this talk, I will specify this relationship, and 
explain how it may arise naturally from the dynamics of convection and 
differential rotation.  Direct support for the entropy/angular velocity 
relationship can be adduced from published numerical simulations of the 
SCZ.  More generally, this "thermal wind characteristic theory" can also 
be used diagnostically for the internal entropy structure of the SCZ, 
and may be extended to fully convective stars of low convective Rossby 
number.



November 12, 2009
Foothills Laboratory 2 (3450 Mitchell Lane)
Main Auditorium (Room 1022)
Lecture 1:30pm