Fast Sausage Oscillations in Coronal Loops with Fine Structures

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that fast sausage modes can exist in coronal loops with fine structures, showing oscillatory behavior similar to ideal models, and can explain rapid QPPs observed in solar flares.

Contribution

It reveals that FSMs are possible in non-axisymmetric, finely structured coronal cylinders, extending previous idealized theories to more realistic solar conditions.

Findings

FSMs persist despite fine structuring.

Oscillation periods are characterized by the transverse Alfvén time.

Doppler shifts are observed even at the loop apex with fine structures.

Abstract

Fast sausage modes (FSMs) in flare loops have long been invoked to account for rapid quasi-periodic pulsations (QPPs) with periods of order seconds in flare lightcurves. However, most theories of FSMs in solar coronal cylinders assume a perfectly axisymmetric equilibrium, an idealized configuration apparently far from reality. In particular, it remains to examine whether FSMs exist in coronal cylinders with fine structures. Working in the framework of ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), we numerically follow the response to an axisymmetric perturbation of a coronal cylinder for which a considerable number of randomly distributed fine structures are superposed on an axisymmetric background. The parameters for the background component are largely motivated by the recent IRIS identification of a candidate FSM in Fe XXI 1354 \AA~observations. We find that the composite cylinder rapidly settles to an oscillatory behavior largely compatible with a canonical trapped FSM. This happens despite that kink-like motions develop in the fine structures. We further synthesize the Fe XXI 1354 \AA~emissions, finding that the transverse Alfv\'en time characterizes the periodicities in the intensity, Doppler shift, and Doppler width signals. Distinct from the case without fine structuring, a non-vanishing Doppler shift is seen even at the apex. We conclude that density-enhanced equilibria need not be strictly axisymmetric to host FSM-like motions in general, and FSMs remain a candidate interpretation for rapid QPPs in solar flares.