Wave behavior in the solar photosphere: A comparison of theory and observation

We report detailed comparisons between theoretical and empirical eigenfunctions of velocity and intensity for the 5-min modes in the photosphere. The comparison process is accomplished by obtaining synthetic profiles of the Fei 5434 Å line in the presence of waveforms given by dynamical calculations and then applying a common procedure of reduction both to the observed and to the synthetic data. For the velocity waveforms, our results show a general agreement between theory and observations together with some systematic differences; in particular the theory systematically underestimates the observations in the low photosphere. These systematic differences are stressed by the intensity results since both the computed amplitudes and phases appear to be wrong in the deeper layers.