  The aim of this paper is to investigate whether there are any 11-yr or
quasi-biennial solar cycle-related variations in solar rotational splitting
frequencies of low-degree solar p modes. Although no 11-yr signals were
observed, variations on a shorter timescale (~2yrs) were apparent. We show that
the variations arose from complications/artifacts associated with the
realization noise in the data and the process by which the data were analyzed.
More specifically, the realization noise was observed to have a larger effect
on the rotational splittings than accounted for by the formal uncertainties.
When used to infer the rotation profile of the Sun these variations are not
important. The outer regions of the solar interior can be constrained using
higher-degree modes. While the variations in the low-l splittings do make large
differences to the inferred rotation rate of the core, the core rotation rate
is so poorly constrained, even by low-l modes, that the different inferred
rotation profiles still agree within their respective 1sigma uncertainties. By
contrast, in asteroseismology, only low-l modes are visible and so higher-l
modes cannot be used to constrain the rotation profile of stars. Furthermore,
we usually only have one data set from which to measure the observed low-l
splitting. In such circumstances the inferred internal rotation rate of a main
sequence star could differ significantly from estimates of the surface rotation
rate, hence leading to spurious conclusions. Therefore, extreme care must be
taken when using only the splittings of low-l modes to draw conclusions about
the average internal rotation rate of a star.
