High-frequency Decayless Waves with Significant Energy in Solar Orbiter/EUI Observations

Abstract

High-frequency wave phenomena present a great deal of interest as one of the possible candidates to contribute to the energy input required to heat the corona as a part of the alternating current heating theory. However, the resolution of imaging instruments up until the Solar Orbiter has made it impossible to resolve the necessary time and spatial scales. The present paper reports on high-frequency transverse motions in a small loop located in a quiet-Sun region of the corona. The oscillations were observed with the High Resolution Imager in the Extreme Ultraviolet telescope (17.4 nm) of the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager instrument on board the Solar Orbiter. We detect two transverse oscillations in short loops with lengths of 4.5 and 11 Mm. The shorter loop displays an oscillation with a 14 s period and the longer a 30 s period. Despite the high resolution, no definitive identification as propagating or standing waves is possible. The velocity amplitudes are found to be equal to 72 and 125 km s ^−1 , respectively, for the shorter and longer loops. Based on that, we also estimated the values of the energy flux contained in the loops—the energy flux of the 14 s oscillation is 1.9 kW m ^−2 and that of the 30 s oscillation is 6.5 kW m ^−2 . While these oscillations have been observed in the quiet Sun, their energy fluxes are of the same order as the energy input required to heat the active solar corona. Numerical simulations were performed in order to reproduce the observed oscillations. The correspondence of the numerical results to the observations provides support to the estimates of energy content for the observations. Such high energy densities have not yet been observed in decayless coronal waves, and this is promising for coronal heating models based on wave damping.

Keywords

• The Sun
• Active solar corona
• Solar coronal waves