Varying Driver Velocity Fields in Photospheric MHD Wave Simulations

TL;DR

This study uses 3D MHD simulations to analyze how varying the width of a vortex-type photospheric driver influences wave mode excitation and energy transport in solar magnetic flux tubes, highlighting the dominance of fast sausage waves.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of mode excitation dependence on driver width in realistic solar atmosphere simulations, emphasizing the prominence of fast sausage waves.

Findings

Wider drivers increase the energy flux contribution of the parallel mode.

Fast sausage waves carry the majority of the energy in these simulations.

Alfven waves contribute minimally to energy transport in this setup.

Abstract

Torsional motions are ubiquitous in the solar atmosphere. In this work, we perform 3D numerical simulations which mimic a vortex-type photospheric driver with a Gaussian spatial profile. This driver is implemented to excite MHD waves in an axially symmetric, 3D magnetic flux tube embedded in a realistic solar atmosphere. The Gaussian width of the driver is varied and the resulting perturbations are compared. Velocity vectors were decomposed into parallel, perpendicular and azimuthal components with respect to pre-defined magnetic flux surfaces. These components correspond broadly to the fast, slow and Alfven modes, respectively. From these velocities the corresponding wave energy fluxes are calculated, allowing us to estimate the contribution of each mode to the energy flux. For the narrowest driver ($0.15$ Mm) the parallel component accounts for $\sim 55 - 65\%$ of the flux. This contribution increases smoothly with driver width up to nearly $90\%$ for the widest driver ($0.35$ Mm). The relative importance of the perpendicular and azimuthal components decrease at similar rates. The azimuthal energy flux varied between $\sim 35\%$ for the narrowest driver and $< 10\%$ for the widest one. Similarly, the perpendicular flux was $\sim 25 - 10\%$. We also demonstrate that the fast mode corresponds to the sausage wave in our simulations. Our results therefore show that the fast sausage wave is easily excited by this driver and that it carries the majority of the energy transported. For this vortex-type driver the Alfven wave does not contribute a significant amount of energy.