Prominence seismology using the period ratio of transverse thread oscillations

¹ Departament de Física, Universitat de les Illes Balears, 07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain
e-mail: roberto.soler@uib.es
² Centre for mathematical Plasma Astrophysics, Department of Mathematics, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200B, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
e-mail: marcel.goossens@wis.kuleuven.be

Received: 14 May 2014
Accepted: 21 January 2015

Abstract

The ratio of the period of the fundamental mode to that of the first overtone of kink oscillations (hereafter period ratio) is a seismology tool that can be used to infer information about the spatial variation of density along solar magnetic flux tubes. The period ratio is 2 in longitudinally homogeneous thin tubes, but it differs from 2 because of longitudinal inhomogeneity. In this paper we investigate the period ratio in longitudinally inhomogeneous prominence threads and explore its implications for prominence seismology. We numerically solve the two-dimensional eigenvalue problem of kink oscillations in a model of a prominence thread. We take into account three nonuniform density profiles along the thread. In agreement with previous works that used simple piecewise constant density profiles, we find that the period ratio is larger than 2 in prominence threads. When the ratio of the central density to that at the footpoints is fixed, the period ratio depends strongly on the form of the density profile along the thread. The more concentrated the dense prominence plasma near the center of the tube, the larger the period ratio. However, the period ratio is found to be independent of the specific density profile when the spatially averaged density in the thread is the same for all the profiles. An empirical fit of the dependence of the period ratio on the average density is given and its use for prominence seismology is discussed.