On the possibility of heating of local solar chromospheric regions by magnetoacoustic-gravity waves in a thin flux tube

Abstract

The response of an isothermal atmosphere of a thin vertical magnetic flux tube to the presence of an acoustic-gravity wave field in the external medium is considered. The Laplace transform method is used to solve a problem with initial conditions. The structure of the solution for disturbances in the tube is a superposition of forced oscillations at the source frequency and oscillations decaying as ∼ t −3/2 (the so-called wave wake). Both components are analogues of the corresponding disturbances in an external medium with a modified amplitude. The excitation under consideration is shown to be effective in the ranges of external oscillation frequencies 0 mHz ≤ v ≤ 3.3 mHz and v ≥ 6.5 mHz. The time-averaged energy flux density for high-frequency magnetoacoustic-gravity waves in the tube is estimated to be ∝ 3.0 × 107 erg cm−2 s−1, a value of the same order of magnitude as that required for heating local regions in the solar chromosphere, ∝ 107 erg cm−2 s−1.