The run of superadiabaticity in stellar convection zones. II. Effect of photospheric convection on solar p-mode frequencies

Kim and Chan have completed a three-dimensional numerical simulation of the interaction between turbulent convection and radiation in and above the highly superadiabatic layer (SAL) in the Sun. They have shown that the dynamics of the domain dictates a SAL structure different from that of a traditional hydrostatic solar model. The top boundary of the convection zone is moved outward by about 0.3 pressure scale height, and in addition, convective overshoot extends into the radiative atmosphere layers by 0.45 pressure scale height. Using our one-dimensional stellar evolution code, we have studied the sensitivity of the calculated p-mode frequencies to a modification of the SAL structure similar to that predicted by Kim and Chan. We find that it is possible to remove in this way the main discrepancy between observed and calculated p-mode frequencies. This experiment is a promising first step in the use of physically realistic three-dimensional radiative-hydrodynamic numerical simulations to derive reliable surface boundary conditions for one-dimensional stellar models.