Paper detail

Persistent fast kink magnetohydrodynamic waves detected in a quiescent prominence

Small-scale, cyclic, transverse motions of plasma threads are usually seen in solar prominences, which are often interpreted as magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves. Here, we observed small-scale decayless transverse oscillations in a quiescent prominence, and they appear to be omnipresent. The oscillatory periods of the emission intensity and a proxy for the line-of-sight Doppler shift are about half period of the displacement oscillations. This feature agrees well with the fast kink-mode waves in a flux tube. All the moving threads oscillate transversally spatially in phase and exhibit no significant damping throughout the visible segments, indicating that the fast kink MHD waves are persistently powered and ongoing dissipating energy is transferred to the ambient plasma in the quiet corona. However, our calculations suggest that the energy taken by the fast kink MHD waves alone can not support the coronal heating on the quiet Sun.