Simulation of Nonlinear Waves in a Magnetic Flux Tube near the Quiet Solar Photospheric Network

Abstract

Recent high-resolution observations from photospheric magnetograms made with the SOHO/Michelson Doppler Imager instrument and Swedish Vacuum Solar Telescope on La Palma showed that magnetic flux tubes in the quiet photospheric network of the solar photosphere are highly dynamic objects with small-scale substructures. We investigate nonlinear waves propagating along a magnetic flux tube in weakly ionized plasmas with high plasma beta ( β~=1) by using three-dimensional neutral-MHD equations. We investigate the wave propagation along a magnetic flux tube with weak current for the two cases of uniform density along the flux tube and density inhomogeneity due to solar gravity. It is shown that shear Alfvén waves are excited due to localized predominantly rotational perturbations, which might be induced in the quiet photospheric network boundaries. Excited waves with strong upflow of wave energy can propagate only upward along the flux tube when the density inhomogeneity due to the gravity is taken into account. We apply the simulation results to the problem of coronal heating from the quiet photospheric network of the solar photosphere.