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Waves are extremely important and have been observed in a wide
variety of solar phenomena. For example, observations have shown
clear evidence for waves in sunspots, prominences, coronal fields and
the overall oscillations of the Sun. The latter has led to the
development of a new branch of solar physics called helioseismology
whereby the surface oscillations are used to deduce the structure of
the solar interior. The frequency of the oscillations provides useful
information about the local plasma properties.
We might expect the
MHD waves to be anisotropic because the magnetic field
introduces a preferred direction to the plasma.
To investigate the possible wave motions we assume that the amplitude of the
waves is small so that we can linearise the MHD equations about a
particular equilibrium.
Subsections
Prof. Alan Hood
2000-01-11