The sun is a big ball of plasma, not a solid object. It's got currents and layers doing all sorts of interesting things--and what you see on the surface doesn't necessarily tell you what's going on below.
[edit]: I don't know much about stellar physics. See reply.
I am not aware of any model of star formation that might leave the outside of a star rotating faster than the inside. And helioseismology suggests that our Sun's core rotates 3-5x faster than the equator. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5831/1591
I'll have to defer to your expertise! I've got very little experience with stars. Do you suppose that if the core is rotating faster than the surface, a slower periodicity could be obtained by a beating interaction between the different angular frequencies?
Actually, we can already measure stellar neutrinos... I wonder if we've already observed this hypothetical 33 day period.
Comments
Same here - breaking the rotational momentum of the Sun is not the simplest explanation that comes to mind :-)
The sun is a big ball of plasma, not a solid object. It's got currents and layers doing all sorts of interesting things--and what you see on the surface doesn't necessarily tell you what's going on below.
[edit]: I don't know much about stellar physics. See reply.
I am not aware of any model of star formation that might leave the outside of a star rotating faster than the inside. And helioseismology suggests that our Sun's core rotates 3-5x faster than the equator. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5831/1591
I'll have to defer to your expertise! I've got very little experience with stars. Do you suppose that if the core is rotating faster than the surface, a slower periodicity could be obtained by a beating interaction between the different angular frequencies?
Actually, we can already measure stellar neutrinos... I wonder if we've already observed this hypothetical 33 day period.