Spectrum and amplitudes of internal gravity waves excited by penetrative convection in solar-type stars

Abstract

The excitation of internal gravity waves by penetrative convective plumes is investigated using 2-D direct simulations of compressible convection. The wave generation is quantitatively studied from the linear response of the radiative zone to the plumes penetration, using projections onto the g-modes solutions of the associated linear eigenvalue problem for the perturbations. This allows an accurate determination of both the spectrum and amplitudes of the stochastically excited modes. Using time-frequency diagrams of the mode amplitudes, we then show that the lifetime of a mode is around twice its period and that during times of significant excitation up to 40% of the total kinetic energy may be contained into g-modes.