Sausage oscillations of coronal plasma slabs

¹ Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK
e-mail: christopher.hornsey@warwick.ac.uk
² STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon., OX11 0QX, UK
³ School of Space Research, Kyung Hee University, Yongin, 446-701, Gyeonggi, Korea
⁴ Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Pulkovo, 196140 St Petersburg, Russia

Received: 28 January 2014
Accepted: 6 May 2014

Abstract

Context. Sausage oscillations are observed in plasma non-uniformities of the solar corona as axisymmetric perturbations of the non-uniformity. Often, these non-uniformities can be modelled as field-aligned slabs of the density enhancement.

Aims. We perform parametric studies of sausage oscillations of plasma slabs, aiming to determine the dependence of the oscillation period on its parameters, and the onset of leaky and trapped regimes of the oscillations.

Methods. Slabs with smooth transverse profiles of the density of a zero-beta plasma are perturbed by an impulsive localised perturbation of the sausage symmetry. In particular, the slab can contain an infinitely thin current sheet in its centre. The initial value problem is then solved numerically. The numerical results are subject to spectral analysis. The results are compared with analytical solutions for a slab with a step-function profile and also with sausage oscillations of a plasma cylinder.

Results. We established that sausage oscillations in slabs generally have the same properties as in plasma cylinders. In the trapped regime, the sausage oscillation period increases with the increase in the longitudinal wavelength. In the leaky regime, the dependence of the period on the wavelength experiences saturation, and the period becomes independent of the wavelength in the long-wavelength limit. In the leaky regime the period is always longer than in the trapped regime. The sausage oscillation period in a slab is always longer than in a cylinder with the same transverse profile. In slabs with steeper transverse profiles, sausage oscillations have longer periods. The leaky regime occurs at shorter wavelengths in slabs with smoother profiles.