On The Determination of MDI High-Degree Mode Frequencies

The characteristic of the solar acoustic spectrum is such that mode lifetimes get shorter and spatial leaks get closer in frequency as the degree of a mode increases for a given order. A direct consequence of this property is that individual p-modes are only resolved at low and intermediate degrees, and that at high degrees, individual modes blend into ridges. Once modes have blended into ridges, the power distribution of the ridge defines the ridge central frequency and it will mask the true underlying mode frequency. An accurate model of the amplitude of the peaks that contribute to the ridge power distribution is needed to recover the underlying mode frequency from fitting the ridge. We present the results of fitting high degree power ridges (up to l = 900) computed from several two to three-month-long time-series of full-disk observations taken with the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) on-board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory between 1996 and 1999. We also present a detailed discussion of the modeling of the ridge power distribution, and the contribution of the various observational and instrumental effects on the spatial leakage, in the context of the MDI instrument. We have constructed a physically motivated model (rather than some ad hoc correction scheme) resulting in a methodology that can produce an unbiased determination of high-degree modes, once the instrumental characteristics are well understood. Finally, we present changes in high degree mode parameters with epoch and thus solar activity level and discuss their significance.