THE ROLE OF ACTIVE REGION LOOP GEOMETRY. II. SYMMETRY BREAKING IN THREE-DIMENSIONAL ACTIVE REGION: WHY ARE VERTICAL KINK OSCILLATIONS OBSERVED SO RARELY?

Abstract

We present numerical results of simulations of kink oscillations of coronal loops in an idealized active region (AR) that is initialized as a potential dipole magnetic configuration with gravitationally stratified density. We consider loops, with density higher than the surrounding plasma, embedded into the dipolar AR. We study the excitation of kink oscillations of such loops by velocity pulses at different positions, of a given duration and amplitude. The position of the pulse varies in the parametric studies. For a central (symmetric) loop within the AR, we find that the amplitude of vertical kink oscillations is significantly amplified in comparison to horizontal kink oscillations for exciters located centrally (symmetrically) below the loop. For pulses initiated further from such a symmetric loop a combination of vertical and horizontal oscillations is excited. The scenario changes significantly when we study an inclined loop (non-symmetric within a dipole field). In this case, we do not see vertical kink oscillations of any significant amplitude being excited, while horizontal ones can be easily detected. These results indicate that the reason why vertical kink oscillations are observed so rarely is that their excitation requires a set of conditions to occur simultaneously: the exciting pulse must be located roughly below the loop apex and the loop itself must be located symmetrically within the group of loops. The new findings of the present study show the importance of not only the position of the pulse, but mainly of the location of the loop within the set of field lines having the same magnetic connectivity. We find that the slow propagating wave is excited in all the studied loops and its excitation does not depend either on the geometry of the loop or the pulse. We discuss TRACE observations of coronal loop oscillations in view of our findings and find that our results can be used for identifying the polarization of the kink mode based on the location of the loop within the set of field lines of the same connectivity and the position of the flare.