A&A 539, A37 (2012) Astronomy

DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201117979 &


c ESO 2012 Astrophysics

Spatial damping of propagating kink waves due to mode coupling

D. J. Pascoe, A. W. Hood, I. De Moortel, and A. N. Wright

School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, KY16 9SS, UK

e-mail: dpascoe@mcs.st-and.ac.uk
Received 30 August 2011 / Accepted 12 December 2011
ABSTRACT

Aims. We investigate the damping process for propagating transverse velocity oscillations, observed to be ubiquitous in the solar
corona, due to mode coupling.
Methods. We perform 3D numerical simulations of footpoint-driven transverse waves propagating in a low β coronal plasma with a
cylindrical density structure. Mode coupling in an inhomogeneous layer leads to the coupling of the kink mode to the Alfvén mode,
observed as the decay of the transverse kink oscillations.
Results. We consider the spatial damping profile and find a Gaussian damping profile of the form exp(−z2 /L2g ) to be the most congruent
with our numerical data, rather than the exponential damping profile of the form exp(−z/Ld ) used in normal mode analysis. Our results
highlight that the nature of the driver itself will have a substantial influence on observed propagating kink waves.
Conclusions. Our study suggests that this modified damping profile should be taken into account when using coronal seismology to
infer local plasma properties from observed damped oscillations.
Key words. Sun: corona – magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) – Sun: atmosphere – Sun: magnetic topology – waves

1. Introduction respectively. The constant C depends upon the chosen density

profile in the inhomogeneous layer, e.g. for a linear density pro-
Standing kink oscillations of coronal loops have attracted atten- file C = (2/π)2 (see e.g., Hollweg & Yang 1988; Goossens et al.
tion as a possible diagnostic tool for the solar corona since the 1992). This equation was derived using the thin tube, thin bound-
observations of post-flare loops by the TRACE satellite (e.g., ary (TTTB) approximation. The assumption of a thin boundary
Aschwanden et al. 1999; Nakariakov et al. 1999). More recently, was relaxed by Van Doorsselaere et al. (2004) who performed a
there has been interest in propagating kink waves, following numerical investigation for thick inhomogeneous layers.
Tomczyk et al. (2007) and Tomczyk & McIntosh (2009) who Terradas et al. (2006) performed numerical simulations for
used the ground-based coronagraph CoMP to observe spatially standing kink modes in straight line-tied coronal loops with a
and temporally ubiquitous propagating transverse velocity os- thick inhomogeneous layer. The standing kink modes are excited
cillations with periods of about 5 min. Tomczyk & McIntosh by a planar pulse and, after an initial transitory period, undergo
(2009) reported strong damping of these propagating waves exponential damping by resonant absorption as given by Eqs. (1)
which was interpreted by Pascoe et al. (2010) in terms of cou- and (2).
pling between the kink and Alfvén modes. For a propagating kink wavepacket in an inhomogeneous
For the case of standing kink modes in a coronal loop be- loop, mode coupling will cause the kink oscillations to de-
ing damped by resonant absorption, the kink eigenmode has a cay. The mode coupling condition is satisfied where ω =
spatial structure determined by the loop parameters and the har- VA (r)kz , where ω is the dominant (angular) frequency of the
monic order of the mode. The global kink mode, for example, kink wavepacket, VA (r) is the local Alfvén speed and kz is
has order N = 1 and a wavelength λ = 2L/N for a loop of the local longitudinal wavenumber (Pascoe et al. 2011a). If the
length L. The standing mode amplitude varies as a function of wavepacket propagates with group speed Vg = ∂ω/∂k, then at a
position along the loop. It is therefore instructive to consider a time t the distance it has propagated along the loop is z = Vg t. We
fixed point along the loop, such as the anti-node of displace- can, therefore, consider the damping of the wavepacket roughly
ment, and then determine the oscillation amplitude as a function as a function of distance as
of time. For standing kink modes, an exponential damping en-
velope is obtained (e.g., Ruderman & Roberts 2002) of the form A(z) = A0 exp(−z/Ld ) (3)
where Ld = Vg τ is the damping length (Pascoe et al. 2010).
Since τ ∝ P ∝ 1/ f , the damping length will depend on the fre-
A(t) = A0 exp(−t/τ). (1) quency of the oscillation. Terradas et al. (2010) considered the
Here the damping time τ depends on the period of oscillation P frequency-dependence of the damping length scale in detail, and
and the loop parameters as Verth et al. (2010) found evidence of the effect of mode coupling
acting as a low-pass filter in CoMP data.
τ a ρ0 + ρe These results strictly apply to the situation where all fields
=C , (2) are varying as exp i(kz z − ωt), but provide a useful guide for the
P l ρ0 − ρe
decay length of wavepackets and other situations where there
where a is the loop radius, l is the inhomogeneous layer thick- is not a single frequency or wavenumber such as initial value
ness, and ρ0 and ρe are the internal and external mass densities, problems or systems with a broadband frequency driver.
Article published by EDP Sciences A37, page 1 of 5
 A&A 539, A37 (2012)

In this paper, we focus on the damping profile as a function

of height for propagating kink waves driven by harmonic foot-
point motions. We find that for propagating modes, the exponen-
tial damping profile does not provide an adequate account of the
decay at low heights.

2. Model
The initial equilibrium we consider is the same as in Pascoe et al.
(2010). We consider a straight, uniform magnetic field in the
z direction. We choose the plasma β = 0.001 to be small, ap-
propriate for the solar corona. Our density profile describes a
cylindrical tube aligned with the z axis. We define a cylindrical
core region with radius r ≤ b, surrounded by an inhomogeneous
layer b < r ≤ a. The density is ρ0 in the core region and ρe in the
external region (r > a). In between is the inhomogeneous layer
of width l = a − b, where the density varies linearly from ρ0 to
ρe . We choose a density contrast ρ0 /ρe = 2 and inhomogeneous
layer thickness l/a = 0.5. The Alfvén speed varies from CA0 in
the core region to CAe in the external region.
Rather than simulating a finite wavetrain as in Pascoe et al.
(2010), the driver is chosen to simulate continuous harmonic
footpoint motions displacing the tube axis. The driving condi-
tion is applied to the lower z boundary and prescribes the x and
y components of velocity,
u = sin(ωt)u, u (x, y) = (u x , uy , 0) (4)
where ω is the (constant) angular frequency of the driver and
where the spatial dependence u (x, y) has the same dipole form
as in Pascoe et al. (2010) (see their Eq. (4) and discussion
in text). We choose the maximum value of the perturbation
u/CAe = 0.002 to be small in order to avoid non-linear effects.
Modelling an exact kink normal mode requires a driver with
an azimuthal velocity profile that is not just discontinuous but
actually singular. Instead a reasonable compromise could be to
consider an azimuthal velocity with a step function (finite) dis-
continuity. Such a driver (as in Terradas et al. 2010) would ex-
cite mainly the kink normal mode with only a very small con- Fig. 1. Magnetic field components as a function of height for a sim-
tribution from other disturbances. When using this particular ulation driven with a single harmonic frequency. The solid lines and
driver in a thin flux tube with a narrow inhomogeneous layer dotted lines represent bx and bz , respectively. The top panel shows the
(TTTB approximation), the exponential damping of Terradas kink mode along the loop axis. The middle panel shows the kink mode
et al. (2010) is to be expected. However, it is unlikely that the inside the inhomogeneous layer. The bottom panel shows the Alfvén
Sun will produce a driving velocity pattern that is discontinuous mode in the inhomogeneous layer. (Note that bz has nodes at the (x, y)
so we mainly consider a smooth (i.e., without discontinuities) locations in the top and bottom panels.)
driver.
The simulations are performed using the MHD code lare3d Figure 1 shows the resultant magnetic field components,
(Arber et al. 2001). The numerical domain is much larger in the each as a function of height (or propagation distance) z, at sev-
z direction than in x or y in order to accommodate the contin- eral locations in the numerical domain. The upper panel shows
uously driven propagating wavepacket. However, the resolution the perturbations to the magnetic field b x (solid line) and bz (dot-
is higher in the x and y directions in order to resolve the activity ted line) at the loop axis, where b(t) = B(t) − B(t = 0). The
in the inhomogeneous layer for as long as possible, particularly component bz has small fluctuations indicating an almost incom-
when phase mixing of the Alfvén mode takes place. Typical val- pressible (kink) mode, and b x varies harmonically according to
ues used are 400 × 400 × 400 grid points for a numerical domain the driven footpoint oscillation which propagates upwards and
of 6 × 6 × 150 Mm (a = 1 Mm). The boundary conditions are undergoes damping due to mode coupling. The dashed line is a
periodic in the x and y directions, and are placed sufficiently far damping profile with a Gaussian form
from the flux tube to not affect the results. All simulations were
run without resistivity. A(z) = A0 exp(−z2 /L2g ) (5)
where Lg is empirically determined by fitting. Although Lg
3. Results has been chosen to give the best fit, the form of the Gaussian
profile seems much more congruent with the numerical data
The transverse velocity perturbations excited at the lower bound- than the exponential envelope found in the modelling of
ary propagate along the magnetic field. The simulation ends be- Terradas et al. (2010) since the radial profile of a smooth driver
fore perturbations reach the upper boundary, to avoid unwanted in a flux tube with a wide inhomogeneous layer cannot be rep-
reflections. resented by a single eigenmode. It is clear that an exponential
A37, page 2 of 5
 D. J. Pascoe et al.: Spatial damping of propagating kink waves

Fig. 2. Transverse velocity component vx as a function of height at the

loop axis. The dot-dashed (red) line represents a Gaussian envelope of
the form given in Eq. (5). The dashed line is the exponential decay given
by Eqs. (2) and (3).

damping profile, as demonstrated by standing modes, would not

provide an adequate fit to our results. The Gaussian damping
profile produces an excellent fit to the data over all values of
z, except for the expected disparity at the leading edge (see e.g.,
Hood et al. 2005, for the case of damping of wavetrains by phase
mixing).
For this particular simulation the boundary was driven with Fig. 3. Snapshot of radial velocity vr (top) and vθ (bottom) as a function
ω = 0.377 s−1 . Our simulation was repeated for several driver of r and z for a kink wave propagating in a cylindrical coronal loop with
frequencies, each showing the same Gaussian damping profile, an inhomogeneous layer (0.5 < r ≤ 1). The velocity components in the
with its own particular value of Lg which decreases with fre- core (r ≤ 0.5) are damped as the energy is transferred by mode coupling
quency as Lg ∝ 1/ f . to azimuthal Alfvén oscillations in the inhomogeneous layer.
The middle panel of Fig. 1 shows the magnetic field compo-
nents as a function of z at y = 0 and at the centre of the inho-
mogeneous layer (x = 0.75). This region is close to the (radial) cylindrical rather than Cartesian coordinate system. It also solves
antinode in bz . Note that our driver (Eq. (4)) is compressible in the linear MHD equations, rather than lare3d which solves the
the transition layer and the amount of compression will influ- full nonlinear MHD equations although we consider small am-
ence the magnitude of bz . The lower panel shows the magnetic plitude perturbations to approximate the linear regime. The same
field components again at the centre of the inhomogeneous layer initial equilibrium, driver and boundary conditions are used as in
but at x = 0 (where bz has a radial node). This is also the lo- the results discussed above.
cation of the antinode for the m = 1 Alfvén mode, represented Figure 3 shows snapshots of the radial and azimuthal veloci-
by b x , which grows in z as energy is transferred to the Alfvén ties at the end of the simulation. Both velocity components show
mode from the kink mode. It is interesting to note that a similar damping with increasing height z in the core region r ≤ 0.5. The
growth in Alfvén wave amplitude was found in the simulations lower panel clearly shows the growth of the Alfvén mode, vθ ,
and modelling of Mann & Wright (1995) and Mann et al. (1997). inside the inhomogeneous shell.
Figure 2 shows the transverse velocity component v x as a Figure 4 shows a plot of vr (top) and bz (bottom) as a function
function of height at the loop axis with two spatial damping of height z at the centre of the inhomogeneous layer (i.e. where
profiles added. The dot-dashed (red) line represents a Gaussian the condition for mode coupling is satisfied). The dashed line
envelope of the form given in Eq. (5). The dashed line is the is a Gaussian envelope and is in excellent agreement with the
exponential decay given by Eqs. (2) and (3) with Vg = Ck =
 calculated damping rate, except again for the expected disparity
2/(1 + ρe /ρ0 )CA0 and C = (2/π)2 as in, e.g., Terradas et al. at the leading edge (e.g., Hood et al. 2005).
(2010). This formula, which is commonly used and is based The top panel of Fig. 5 shows the location of the zeroes of
upon the thin flux tube and thin boundary layer approximations, vr (crosses) and bz (diamonds) for the oscillations in Fig. 4. The
gives an exponential damping length of Ld ≈ 25 Mm. Our simu- zeroes for bz have been shifted to be in phase with those for vr .
lations indicate a different (Gaussian) envelope is more appro- The dashed (red) line shows the predicted locations based on the
priate and has a larger length scale of Lg ≈ 52 Mm. These driving period P and the kink speed Ck . In the long-wavelength
differences must be accounted for when interpreting data and limit ka  1, the kink mode will have wavelength λ ≈ Ck P so
simulations. the zeroes are separated by λ/2. The zeroes for bz are in good
agreement with the predictions based on the kink mode. The
3.1. Numerical simulation in cylindrical coordinates dot-dashed (black) line shows the predicted locations of the ze-
roes based on the Alfvén speed CA0 . The zeroes of vr initially
In order to confirm our results in the absence of an analytical follow the estimate based on the kink speed, but later switch
treatment, we perform the same experiment with an indepen- (n > 4) to follow more closely the estimate based on the inter-
dent numerical code in which perturbations are proportional to nal Alfvén speed. This crossover provides more support for the
exp(iθ). This alternative Lax-Wendroff code differs in using a interpretation of propagating transverse velocity perturbations as
A37, page 3 of 5
 A&A 539, A37 (2012)

Fig. 4. Radial velocity vr (top) and longitudinal magnetic field bz (bot-

tom) as a function of height z at the centre of the inhomogeneous layer.
The dashed lines represent a Gaussian envelope of the form given in Fig. 5. The top panel shows the location of the zeroes of vr (crosses)
Eq. (5). and bz (diamonds) for the oscillations in Fig. 4. The zeroes for bz have
been shifted to be in phase with those for vr . The dashed (red) and dot-
dashed (black) lines represent the predicted values for the kink mode
a genuine coupling of the kink and Alfvén modes (Pascoe et al.
and Alfvén mode, respectively. The bottom panel shows the natural log-
2010). arithm of the amplitude of the vr signal as a function of height. The
The bottom panel of Fig. 5 shows the natural logarithm of dashed line indicates Gaussian nature of the spatial damping profile.
the amplitude of the vr signal as a function of height. The dashed
line represents a quadratic fit, supporting the Gaussian envelope
in Eq. (5). profile of the form 1/(r − R), where R is the radius at which the
kink speed equals the local Alfvén speed. This is demonstrated
4. Discussion in Fig. 6, where the top panel shows the logarithmic amplitude
of the radial velocity perturbations at the axis of a flux tube with
We have considered the propagation of harmonic transverse ve- a narrow inhomogeneous layer with l/a = 0.1. These perturba-
locity perturbations through a low β plasma with cylindrical den- tions were generated by a driver with a step function disconti-
sity structure. The transfer of energy from transverse kink oscil- nuity in the radial profile of the azimuthal velocity. The bottom
lations to azimuthal Alfvén motions, due to mode coupling, is panel, on the other hand, shows the simulation result using a
observed as a decay of the initial kink disturbance. For a broad- smooth driving profile and a wide inhomogeneous layer l/a =
band driver, each Fourier component can be considered to have a 2/3. In both panels the dashed line corresponds to an exponential
damping length scale Ld = Vg τ, where τ ∝ P ∝ 1/ f . Higher fre- damping profile, whereas the dot-dashed line corresponds to a
quency components will therefore be damped over shorter prop- Gaussian damping profile. It is clear that for the top panel (TTTB
agation distances than lower frequency components. In this way model) the exponential decay gives an excellent fit after the first
mode coupling acts as a low-pass filter, as noted by Terradas few wavelengths, demonstrating that in this limit we do indeed
et al. (2010) and Verth et al. (2010). recover the results of Terradas et al. (2010). For a smooth (con-
Pascoe et al. (2010) showed that normal mode calculations tinuous) driver with a wide inhomogeneous layer, the damping
can be a useful indicator of the behaviour of propagating wave- profile is mainly Gaussian apart from at large heights where the
trains when the spatial and temporal scales match (see also exponential profile is recovered. However, in the TTTB regime
Terradas et al. 2010). In this paper, we have demonstrated that (top panel) the damping is very weak even at large heights. The
the damping profile of propagating transverse velocity perturba- observations have shown strong in situ attenuation of the trans-
tions in a flux tube with a wide inhomogeneous layer differs from verse velocity perturbations (Tomczyk & McIntosh 2009) and
the exponential profile of standing or normal modes in z, and that hence, the strong damping achieved in our wide layer simula-
a Gaussian damping profile is most congruent with our numeri- tions (bottom panel) seems more representative. Accordingly,
cal data. However, for a flux tube with a narrow inhomogeneous care should be taken when using the spatial damping length
layer (TTTB), the result of Terradas et al. (2010) should be re- in coronal seismology applications. For example, when strong
covered in the case of a driver with a singular azimuthal velocity damping is observed, our simulations show that fitting to an
A37, page 4 of 5
 D. J. Pascoe et al.: Spatial damping of propagating kink waves

damping length Ld . Pascoe et al. (2011a) noted that the method

of mode coupling for propagating kink wavepackets differs from
resonant absorption of standing modes in that there is no reso-
nant singularity in this process and there is no harmonic driv-
ing frequency. The result of this paper supports the claim that
normal mode analysis provides a useful guide to the behaviour
of propagating wavepackets but a more considered approach is
required if propagating waves are intended to be used as an ac-
curate diagnostic for MHD coronal seismology. However, even
for the described Gaussian damping profile of the driven trans-
verse velocity perturbations, mode coupling will still act as a fre-
quency filter with the higher frequencies damped near the loop
footpoints and only the lower frequency modes propagating fur-
ther along the loops. If the wrong spatial envelope for damped
kink modes is used when interpreting data, it is inevitable that
any inferences made will be questionable and/or misleading.
The Gaussian rather than exponential spatial damping pro-
file arises because we do not apply a pure kink mode driver
and have a wide inhomogeneous layer. A full analytical treat-
ment and parametric study of the dependence of the damping
length scale Lg on driver frequency and density structuring will
be presented in a forthcoming paper. Results so far indicate that
if the transition layer is very narrow, then the exponential damp-
ing profile of Terradas et al. (2010) is a good approximation
for nearly all heights. If the transition layer is wider, then the
Gaussian profile is a better fit for lower heights. There is still a
switch to the exponential damping profile at larger heights but
as at these heights most of the energy in the m = 1 mode is
transferred into the Alfvén wave, observationally this stage is
Fig. 6. Logarithmic amplitude of the radial velocity perturbations at the perhaps not so important for practical seismological purposes.
axis of a flux tube for a narrow inhomogeneous layer with l/a = 0.1, In this paper we have chosen a wider boundary layer as a nar-
using a driver with a radially discontinuous azimuthal component (top) row transition layer does not reproduce the observed rapid/short
and for a wide inhomogeneous layer l/a = 2/3, using a smooth driver damping scales (e.g. Goossens et al. 2002; Pascoe et al. 2010).
(bottom). The dashed and dot-dashed lines correspond to exponential
and Gaussian spatial damping profiles, respectively.
Acknowledgements. D.J.P. acknowledges financial support from STFC. I.D.M.
acknowledges support of a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. The
computational work for this paper was carried out on the joint STFC and SFC
exponential damping rate low in the corona would underesti- (SRIF) funded cluster at the University of St Andrews (Scotland, UK).
mate the mode coupling rate and could infer, say, less density
structuring than is actually present.
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