Modeling the Subsurface Structure of Sunspots

While sunspots are easily observed at the solar surface, determining their subsurface structure is not trivial. There are two main hypotheses for the subsurface structure of sunspots: the monolithic model and the cluster model. Local helioseismology is the only means by which we can investigate subphotospheric structure. However, as current linear inversion techniques do not yet allow helioseismology to probe the internal structure with sufficient confidence to distinguish between the monolith and cluster models, the development of 1 Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, 37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany email: [email protected] 2 Department of Astronomy, Yale University, P.O. Box 208101, New Haven, CT 06520, USA 3 Colorado Research Associates, A Division of NorthWest Research Associates, Inc., 3380 Mitchell Lane, Boulder, CO 80301-5410, USA 4 Laboratory for Solar Physics, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA 5 New Mexico State University, Astronomy Department, P.O. Box 30001, MSC4500, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA 6 Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, 38205, C/Via Láctea, s/n, Tenerife, Spain 7 National Solar Observatory, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA 8 Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, India 9 HAO/NCAR, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307, USA 10 Kiepenheuer-Institut für Sonnenphysik, Schöneckstr. 6, 79104 Freiburg, Germany 11 Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany 12 Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany 13 School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sheffield, Houndsfield Road, Sheffield, S3 7RH, UK 14 Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College