Kelvin-Helmholtz instability and heating in oscillating loops perturbed by power-law transverse wave drivers

Context. Instabilities in oscillating loops are believed to be essential for dissipating the wave energy and heating the solar coronal plasma.

Aims. Our aim is to study the development of the Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability in an oscillating loop that is driven by random footpoint motions.

Methods. Using the PLUTO code, we performed 3D simulations of a straight gravitationally stratified flux tube. The loop footpoints are embedded in chromospheric plasma, in the presence of thermal conduction and an artificially broadened transition region. Using drivers with a power-law spectrum, one with a red noise spectrum and one with the low-frequency part subtracted, we excited standing oscillations and the KH instability in our loops, after one-and-a-half periods of the oscillation.

Results. We see that our broadband drivers lead to fully deformed, turbulent loop cross-sections over the entire coronal part of the loop due to the spatially extended KH instability. The low RMS velocity of our driver without the low-frequency components supports the working hypothesis that the KH instability can easily manifest in oscillating coronal loops. We report for the first time in driven transverse oscillations of loops the apparent propagation of density perturbations due to the onset of the KH instability, from the apex towards the footpoints. Both drivers input sufficient energy to drive enthalpy and mass flux fluctuations along the loop, while also causing heating near the driven footpoint of the oscillating loop, which becomes more prominent when a low-frequency component is included in the velocity driver. Finally, our power-law driver with the low-frequency component provides a RMS input Poynting flux of the same order as the radiative losses of the quiet-Sun corona, giving us promising prospects for the contribution of decayless oscillations in coronal heating.