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Title: Axisymmetric modes in magnetic flux tubes with internal and external magnetic twist

Journal Article · · Astrophysical Journal
; ;  [1];  [2]
  1. Solar Plasma Physics Research Centre, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sheffield, Hounsfield Road, Hicks Building, Sheffield, S3 7RH (United Kingdom)
  2. Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, University of Sheffield, Mappin Street, Amy Johnson Building, Sheffield, S1 3JD (United Kingdom)

Observations suggest that twisted magnetic flux tubes are ubiquitous in the Sun's atmosphere. The main aim of this work is to advance the study of axisymmetric modes of magnetic flux tubes by modeling both twisted internal and external magnetic fields, when the magnetic twist is weak. In this work, we solve the derived wave equations numerically assuming that the twist outside the tube is inversely proportional to the distance from its boundary. We also study the case of a constant magnetic twist outside the tube and solve these equations analytically. We show that the solution for a constant twist outside the tube is a good approximation for the case where the magnetic twist is proportional to 1/r, namely, the error is in all cases less than 5.4%. The solution is in excellent agreement with solutions to simpler models of twisted magnetic flux tubes, i.e., without external magnetic twist. It is shown that axisymmetric Alfvén waves are naturally coupled with magnetic twist as the azimuthal component of the velocity perturbation is nonzero. We compared our theoretical results with observations and comment on what the Doppler signature of these modes is expected to be. Lastly, we argue that the character of axisymmetric waves in twisted magnetic flux tubes can lead to false positives in identifying observations with axisymmetric Alfvén waves.

OSTI ID:
22882719
Journal Information:
Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 810, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Since 2009, the country of publication for this journal is the UK.; ISSN 0004-637X
Country of Publication:
United Kingdom
Language:
English