Dispersion of Slow Magnetoacoustic Waves in the Active Region Fan Loops Introduced by Thermal Misbalance

TL;DR

This study investigates how thermal misbalance influences the dispersion of slow magnetoacoustic waves in solar coronal loops, revealing significant effects on wave properties and implications for plasma diagnostics.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of thermal misbalance effects on wave dispersion within magnetic flux tubes, enhancing the accuracy of coronal seismology models.

Findings

Thermal misbalance significantly affects wave phase speed and damping.

Neglecting misbalance can cause discrepancies in plasma parameter estimations.

Both geometric and thermal effects influence wave dispersion.

Abstract

Slow magnetoacoustic waves observed in the solar corona are used as seismological probes of plasma parameters. It has been shown that dispersion properties of such waves can vary significantly under the influence of the wave-induced thermal misbalance. In the current research, we study the effect of misbalance on waves inside the magnetic-flux tube under the second-order thin-flux-tube approximation. Using the parameters of active region fan coronal loops, we calculated wave properties such as the phase speed and decrement. It is shown that neglecting thermal misbalance may be the reason for the substantial divergence between seismological and spectrometric estimations of plasma parameters. We also show that the frequency dependence of phase speed is affected by two features, namely the geometric dispersion and the dispersion caused by the thermal misbalance. In contrast to the phase speed, the wave decrement primarily is affected by the thermal misbalance only. The dependencies of the phase speed and decrement of the slow wave on magnetic field and tube cross-section are also analyzed.