A statistical study of propagating MHD kink waves in the quiescent corona

TL;DR

This study uses CoMP data to compile a catalogue of 120 quiescent coronal loops and performs a statistical analysis of propagating kink waves, revealing a relationship between loop length and wave damping.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive catalogue of quiescent coronal loops for kink wave analysis and identifies a correlation between loop length and damping rate, suggesting density contrast effects.

Findings

Longer loops exhibit weaker wave damping.

Damping rate correlates with loop length.

Density contrast decreases with increasing loop length.

Abstract

The Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter (CoMP) has opened up exciting opportunities to probe transverse MHD waves in the Sun's corona. The archive of CoMP data is utilised to generate a catalogue of quiescent coronal loops that can be used for studying propagating kink waves. The catalogue contains 120 loops observed between 2012-2014. This catalogue is further used to undertake a statistical study of propagating kink waves in the quiet regions of the solar corona, investigating phase speeds, loop lengths, footpoint power ratio and equilibrium parameter values. The statistical study enables us to establish the presence of a relationship between the rate of damping and the length of the coronal loop, with longer coronal loops displaying weaker wave damping. We suggest the reason for this behaviour is related to a decreasing average density contrast between the loop and ambient plasma as loop length increases. The catalogue presented here will provide the community with the foundation for the further study of propagating kink waves in the quiet solar corona.