Determining the Polarization of a Coronal Standing Kink Oscillation Using Spectral Imaging Techniques with CoMP

Coronal oscillations offer insight into energy transport and driving in the solar atmosphere. Knowing its polarization state helps constrain a wave’s displacement and velocity amplitude, improving estimates of wave energy flux and deposition rate. We demonstrate a method to combine imaging and spectral data to infer the polarization of a coronal loop’s standing kink wave, without the need for multiple instruments or multiple lines of sight. We use the unique capabilities of the Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter (CoMP) to observe the standing kink mode of an off-limb coronal loop perturbed by an eruption. The full off-disk corona is observed using the 1074 nm Fe xiii spectral line, providing Doppler velocity, intensity, and line width. By tracking the oscillatory motion of a loop apex in a time–distance map, we extract the line-of-sight (Doppler) velocity of the inhomogeneity as it sways and compare it with the derivative of its plane-of-sky displacement. This analysis provides the loop’s velocity in two perpendicular planes as it oscillates with a period of 8.9−0.5+0.5 minutes. Through detailed analysis of the phase relation between the transverse velocities, we infer the kink oscillation to be horizontally polarized, oscillating in a plane tilted −13.°6−3.0+2.9 away from the plane of sky. The line widths show a periodic enhancement during the kink oscillation, exhibiting both the kink period and its double. This study is the first to combine direct imaging and spectral data to infer the polarization of a coronal loop oscillation from a single viewpoint.