Helioseismic Holography of Simulated Solar Convection and Prospects for the Detection of Small-Scale Subsurface Flows

We perform helioseismic holography on realistic solar convection simulations and compare the observed travel-time perturbations with the expected travel times from the horizontal flows in the simulations computed from forward models under the assumption of the Born approximation. We demonstrate reasonable agreement between the observed and model travel times which reinforces the validity of helioseismic holography in the detection of subsurface horizontal flows. An assessment is made of the uncertainty of the measured p-mode travel-times, from the root-mean-square of the residuals. From the variation of the signal-tonoise ratio with depth, we conclude that the helioseismic detection of individual flow structures with spatial scales of supergranulation or smaller is not possible present address: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kettering University, Flint, MI 48504, USA