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Issue A&A Volume 412, Number 1, December II 2003 Page(s) L7 - L10 Section Letters DOI 10.1051/0004-6361:20031660

A&A 412, L7-L10 (2003)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20031660

Letter

Global sausage modes of coronal loops

V. M. Nakariakov¹, V. F. Melnikov^{2, 3} and V. E. Reznikova<sup>2

1</sup>  Physics Department, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK
    e-mail: valery@astro.warwick.ac.uk
²  Radiophysical Research Institute (NIRFI), Nizhny Novgorod, 603950, Russia
    e-mail: meln@nirfi.sci-nnov.ru, reznik@nirfi.sci-nnov.ru
³  New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA

(Received 22 May 2003 / Accepted 25 October 2003)

Abstract
Sufficiently thick and dense coronal loops can support global sausage magnetoacoustic modes. We demonstrate that the oscillation period of this mode, calculated in the straight cylinder approximation, is determined by the length of the loop, not by its diameter, as it was previously assumed. The existence condition for this mode is the ratio of the loop length to its diameter to be less than about a half of the square root of the density contrast ratio. This mode has a maximum of the magnetic field perturbation at the loop apex and nodes at the footpoints. We demonstrate that the 14-17 s quasi-periodic pulsations, oscillating in phase at a loop apex and at its legs, observed with the Nobeyama Radioheliograph, are interpreted in terms of the global sausage mode.

Key words: magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) -- waves -- Sun: activity -- Sun: corona -- Sun: oscillations -- Sun: radio pulsations

Offprint request: V. M. Nakariakov, valery@astro.warwick.ac.uk

© ESO 2003

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