Propagation of Surface Magnetohydrodynamic Waves in Asymmetric Multilayered Plasma

Investigation of magnetohydrodynamic wave propagation in different equilibrium configurations is important for the development of solar magnetoseismology. In the present work, a magnetized plasma slab sandwiched between an arbitrary number of nonmagnetic layers is considered and an analytical approach is used for the derivation of its dispersion relation. This work is a natural generalization of the symmetric slab model studied by Roberts and the asymmetric magnetic slab model, considered by Allcock & Erdelyi. Similar to the dispersion relation for an asymmetric slab, and unlike a symmetric slab, the dispersion relation for an asymmetric multilayered plasma cannot be decoupled into sausage and kink eigenmodes. The waves that permitted us to propagate in multilayered slabs have mixed characters; therefore, the notion of quasi-sausage and quasi-kink waves is more appropriate. Here, we focus on how a multilayered structuring affects the eigenmodes. The amplitudes of the eigenmodes depend on the equilibrium structuring and the model parameters; this motivates an application as a solar magnetoseismology tool. Finally, specific cases of two- and three-layered slabs are studied in detail and their potential applicability to magnetic bright points is discussed.