ON THE DISPERSION AND SCATTERING OF MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMIC WAVES BY LONGITUDINALLY STRATIFIED FLUX TUBES

Abstract

We provide a fairly general analytic theory for the dispersion and scattering of magnetohydrodynamic waves by longitudinally stratified flux tubes. The theory provides a common framework for, and synthesis of, many previous studies of flux oscillations that were carried out under various simplifying assumptions. The present theory focuses on making only a minimal number of assumptions. As a result it thus provides an analytical treatment of several generalizations of existing oscillation models. The most important practical cases are inclusion of plasma pressure and possibly buoyancy effects in models of straight non-diverging tubes as applied in coronal seismology, and relaxation of the thin tube approximation in oscillation models of diverging tubes as applied both in the context of p-mode scattering and coronal seismology. In particular, it illustrates the unifying theoretical framework underlying both the description of waves scattered by flux tubes and the dispersion of waves carried along flux tubes.