Bibcode
Ruderman, M. S.; Luna, M.
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 591, id.A131, 10 pp.
Advertised on:
6
2016
Journal
Citations
15
Refereed citations
14
Description
We study the damping of longitudinal oscillations of a prominence thread
caused by the mass accretion. We suggested a simple model describing
this phenomenon. In this model we considered a thin curved magnetic tube
filled with the plasma. The prominence thread is in the central part of
the tube and it consists of dense cold plasma. The parts of the tube at
the two sides of the thread are filled with hot rarefied plasma. We
assume that there are flows of rarefied plasma toward the thread caused
by the plasma evaporation at the magnetic tube footpoints. Our main
assumption is that the hot plasma is instantaneously accommodated by the
thread when it arrives at the thread, and its temperature and density
become equal to those of the thread. Then we derive the system of
ordinary differential equations describing the thread dynamics. We solve
this system of ordinary differential equations in two particular cases.
In the first case we assume that the magnetic tube is composed of an arc
of a circle with two straight lines attached to its ends such that the
whole curve is smooth. A very important property of this model is that
the equations describing the thread oscillations are linear for any
oscillation amplitude. We obtain the analytical solution of the
governing equations. Then we obtain the analytical expressions for the
oscillation damping time and periods. We find that the damping time is
inversely proportional to the accretion rate. The oscillation periods
increase with time. We conclude that the oscillations can damp in a few
periods if the inclination angle is sufficiently small, not larger that
10°, and the flow speed is sufficiently large, not less that 30 km
s-1. In the second model we consider the tube with the shape
of an arc of a circle. The thread oscillates with the pendulum frequency
dependent exclusively on the radius of curvature of the arc. The damping
depends on the mass accretion rate and the initial mass of the threads,
that is the mass of the thread at the moment when it is perturbed. First
we consider small amplitude oscillations and use the linear description.
Then we consider nonlinear oscillations and assume that the damping is
slow, meaning that the damping time is much larger that the
characteristic oscillation time. The thread oscillations are described
by the solution of the nonlinear pendulum problem with slowly varying
amplitude. The nonlinearity reduces the damping time, however this
reduction is small. Again the damping time is inversely proportional to
the accretion rate. We also obtain that the oscillation periods decrease
with time. However even for the largest initial oscillation amplitude
considered in our article the period reduction does not exceed 20%. We
conclude that the mass accretion can damp the motion of the threads
rapidly. Thus, this mechanism can explain the observed strong damping of
large-amplitude longitudinal oscillations. In addition, the damping time
can be used to determine the mass accretion rate and indirectly the
coronal heating.