Line-of-sight geometrical and instrumental resolution effects on intensity perturbations by sausage modes

TL;DR

This study models how line-of-sight and instrumental resolutions affect the detection of sausage mode oscillations in the solar corona, highlighting the importance of spectrometers and resolution considerations for accurate MHD wave diagnostics.

Contribution

It provides a detailed forward modeling analysis of sausage mode signatures considering observational effects, aiding in the interpretation of solar MHD wave data.

Findings

Spectral line broadening can be significantly modulated by sausage modes, mainly due to turbulence.

Detection sensitivity depends strongly on line-of-sight angle and instrument resolution.

Spectrometers outperform imaging instruments in identifying sausage mode signatures.

Abstract

Diagnostics of MHD waves in the solar atmosphere is a topic which often encounters problems of interpretation, due partly to the high complexity of the solar atmospheric medium. Forward modeling can significantly guide interpretation, bridging the gap between numerical simulations and observations, and increasing the reliability of mode identification for application of MHD seismology. In this work we aim at determining the characteristics of the fast MHD sausage mode in the corona on the modulation of observable quantities such as line intensity and spectral line broadening. Effects of line-of-sight angle, and spatial, temporal and spectral resolutions are considered. We take a cylindrical tube simulating a loop in a low-{\beta} coronal environment with an optically thin background, and let it oscillate with the fast sausage mode. A parametric study is performed. Among other results, we show that regardless of the ionisation state of the plasma, the variation of spectral line broadening can be significant, even for low intensity modulation. The nature of this broadening is not thermal but is mostly turbulent. This places spectrometers in clear advantage over imaging instruments for the detection of the sausage mode. The modulation of all quantities is considerably affected by the line-of-sight angle, and especially by the spatial and temporal resolution when these are on the order of the mode's wavelength and period. This places high constraints on instrumentation.