Abstract
Nonthermal velocities measured in the solar corona imply a strong damping of upward-propagating low-frequency less than or similar to 0.01 Hz Alfven waves at heliocentric distances from 1.02 to 1.4 solar radii. We propose a vector Alfven wave decay as a feasible mechanism for the observed Alfven wave damping. Contrary to the extensively studied scalar decay, the vector decay does not depend on the wave frequency and can be efficient for low-frequency coronal Alfven waves. We show that the vector decay is much stronger than the scalar decay and can provide the observed damping of 0.01 Hz coronal Alfven waves with perpendicular wavelengths of similar to 10(4) km or less. Fully three-dimensional (3D) numerical simulations are needed to capture this decay, whose growth rate is proportional to the vector product of interacting wave vectors.
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