Coronal Quasi-periodic Fast-mode Propagating Wave Trains

TL;DR

QFP wave trains in the solar corona are fast-propagating, quasi-periodic wavefronts observed by SDO/AIA, providing insights into coronal dynamics, flare processes, and potential for coronal seismology.

Contribution

This paper reviews recent observational and theoretical advances in understanding coronal QFP wave trains, highlighting their properties, generation mechanisms, and applications in solar physics.

Findings

QFP wave trains consist of multiple coherent wavefronts propagating at high speeds.

They are categorized into narrow and broad types based on their properties.

QFP wave trains are linked to flare pulsations and can be used for coronal seismology.

Abstract

QFP wave trains in the corona have been studied intensively in the past decade, thanks to the full-disk, high spatiotemporal resolution, and wide-temperature coverage observations taken by the SDO/AIA. In AIA observations, QFP wave trains are seen to consist of multiple coherent and concentric wavefronts emanating successively near the epicenter of the accompanying flares; they propagate outwardly either along or across coronal loops at fast-mode magnetosonic speeds from several hundred to more than 2000 km/s, and their periods are in the range of tens of seconds to several minutes. Based on the distinct different properties of QFP wave trains, they might be divided into two distinct categories including narrow and broad ones. For most QFP wave trains, some of their periods are similar to those of quasi-periodic pulsations (QPPs) in the accompanying flares, indicating that they are probably different manifestations of the same physical process. Currently, candidate generation mechanisms for QFP wave trains include two main categories: pulsed energy excitation mechanism in association with magnetic reconnection and dispersion evolution mechanism related to the dispersive evolution of impulsively generated broadband perturbations. In addition, the generation of some QFP wave trains might be driven by the leakage of three and five minute oscillations from the lower atmosphere. As one of the new discoveries of SDO, QFP wave trains provide a new tool for coronal seismology to probe the corona parameters, and they are also useful for diagnosing the generation of QPPs, flare processes including energy release and particle accelerations. This review aims to summarize the main observational and theoretical results of the spatially-resolved QFP wave trains in extreme ultraviolet observations, and states briefly a number of questions that deserve further investigations.