January 1991
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10 Citations
Although an evaluation of the normal pulsation mechanisms observed in many variable-star classes indicates that many of these are operative in the sun, most studies of solar mode excitation predict that both radiative damping and damping by convective processes can overwhelm the driving to stabilize all radial and nonradial modes. This is in keeping with observations exhibiting measurable p-mode oscillation spectrum line widths, which are indicative of p-mode lifetimes of the order of days. Attention is given to calculations showing how convection can drive solar p-modes. Solar p-modes are probably stochastically driven via convective coupling.