Magneto-acoustic Waves in a Magnetic Slab Embedded in an Asymmetric Magnetic Environment: The Effects of Asymmetry

Abstract

Modeling the behavior of magnetohydrodynamic waves in a range of magnetic geometries mimicking solar atmospheric waveguides, from photospheric flux tubes to coronal loops, can offer a valuable contribution to the field of solar magneto-seismology. The present study uses an analytical approach to derive the dispersion relation for magneto-acoustic waves in a magnetic slab of homogeneous plasma enclosed on its two sides by semi-infinite plasma of different densities, temperatures, and magnetic field strengths, providing an asymmetric plasma environment. This is a step further in the generalization of the classic magnetic slab model, which is symmetric about the slab, was developed by Roberts, and is an extension of the work by Allcock & Erdélyi where a magnetic slab is sandwiched in an asymmetric nonmagnetic plasma environment. In contrast to the symmetric case, the dispersion relation governing the asymmetric slab cannot be factorized into separate sausage and kink eigenmodes. The solutions obtained resemble these well-known modes; however, their properties are now mixed. Therefore we call these modes quasi-sausage and quasi-kink modes. If conditions on the two sides of the slab do not differ strongly, then a factorization of the dispersion relation can be achieved for the further analytic study of various limiting cases representing a solar environment. In the current paper, we examine the incompressible limit in detail and demonstrate its possible application to photospheric magnetic bright points. After the introduction of a mechanical analogy, we reveal a relationship between the external plasma and magnetic parameters, which allows for the existence of quasi-symmetric modes.