Solar Vortices: Catalysts of Magnetoacoustic Wave Dissipation and Atmospheric Heating

TL;DR

This study uses 3D radiative MHD simulations to show how solar vortex flows influence magnetoacoustic wave dissipation and atmospheric heating, revealing vortex-driven motions enhance shock velocities and thermal effects in the chromosphere.

Contribution

It demonstrates the role of photospheric vortex flows in amplifying shock velocities and affecting thermal structures in the solar chromosphere through detailed simulation analysis.

Findings

Vortex regions show systematically higher temperatures.

Supersonic upflows at vortex locations have higher parallel velocities.

Vortex flows contribute to increased shock dissipation and atmospheric heating.

Abstract

The propagation and dissipation of magnetohydrodynamic waves play a key role in transporting energy from the solar photosphere to the chromosphere. Using high-resolution three-dimensional radiative MHD simulations, we investigate the evolution of slow magnetoacoustic waves along magnetic field lines and examine the influence of photospheric vortex flows on wave dynamics and heating. Field-line tracking reveals upward-propagating slow-mode waves that amplify in the stratified atmosphere and steepen into shocks in the chromosphere, producing recurrent plasma surges with characteristic chromospheric shock signatures. Vortex regions are identified using the swirling strength diagnostic with height-dependent Gaussian smoothing to capture expanding vortex structures. A comparison between vortex and non-vortex field lines shows systematically enhanced temperature in vortex regions.Furthermore, a comparison of shock formation height between vortex and non-vortex regions reveals no systematic difference, indicating that rotational flows do not significantly alter the height at which shocks form. However, supersonic upflows at vortex locations exhibit somewhat higher parallel velocities compared to non-vortex regions, suggesting that vortex-driven motions may amplify the velocity of propagating shocks. These results indicate that vortex-driven motions contribute to increased shock dissipation and modify the thermal structure of the lower solar atmosphere, highlighting the coupled role of slow-mode shocks and vortex flows in chromospheric energy transport.