The Excitation and Rapid Damping of Coronal Loop Oscillations Observed from the TRACE

Extract

TRACE (Transition Region and Coronal Explorer) observations of transverse oscillations in coronal loops have prompted a number of questions to which there are no convincing answers as yet. Only the conclusion that the appearance of oscillations reflects the response of the magnetosphere of an active region to an internal or external magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) disturbance seems beyond question. The sources of such disturbances are solar flares or filament eruptions. The putative correspondence of the observed oscillations to the axisymmetric fundamental kink mode of a single coronal loop raises two questions at once: how to excite this mode and how to explain the rapid damping of the oscillation.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html