Persistent fast kink magnetohydrodynamic waves detected in a quiescent prominence

TL;DR

This study reports the detection of persistent, decayless fast kink-mode MHD waves in a quiescent solar prominence, revealing their omnipresence and potential role in energy transfer, but not sufficient for coronal heating.

Contribution

It provides the first observation of decayless fast kink MHD waves in a quiescent prominence, highlighting their continuous presence and energy transfer characteristics.

Findings

Fast kink MHD waves are omnipresent in the prominence.

Oscillations show no significant damping over visible segments.

Energy from these waves alone cannot account for coronal heating.

Abstract

Small-scale, cyclic, transverse motions of plasma threads are usually seen in solar prominences, which are often interpreted as magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves. Here, we observed small-scale decayless transverse oscillations in a quiescent prominence, and they appear to be omnipresent. The oscillatory periods of the emission intensity and a proxy for the line-of-sight Doppler shift are about half period of the displacement oscillations. This feature agrees well with the fast kink-mode waves in a flux tube. All the moving threads oscillate transversally spatially in phase and exhibit no significant damping throughout the visible segments, indicating that the fast kink MHD waves are persistently powered and ongoing dissipating energy is transferred to the ambient plasma in the quiet corona. However, our calculations suggest that the energy taken by the fast kink MHD waves alone can not support the coronal heating on the quiet Sun.