Magnetohydrodynamic sausage waves in current-carrying coronal tubes

Abstract

Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) sausage waves in a coronal loop consisting of a core with longitudinal magnetic field and a current-carrying annulus with azimuthal magnetic field in the presence of plasma pressure are studied. As the plasma pressure is introduced to the loop a narrow band of infinite slow waves appear in the dispersion diagram, and the oscillation frequency of the fast sausage waves increases. In the loops with thinner annulus, more fast sausage waves with higher radial mode numbers are supported by the loop, and the fast sausage waves have smaller cut off wave numbers. The eigenfunction of the long wavelength fast sausage wave supported by the current-carrying loop, in the case of low density contrast, is similar to the eigenfunction of the slow sausage wave in a straight homogeneous loop with the maximum frequency of the frequency band. Other slow sausage waves both in a straight homogeneous loop and a current-carrying loop do not perturb the surrounding environment substantially.