NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS OF FAST MHD WAVES IN A CORONAL PLASMA .2. IMPULSIVELY GENERATED LINEAR WAVES

The temporal evolution of impulsively generated waves in solar coronal loops is studied in the framework of linearized low beta MHD by means of numerical simulations. Loops are approximated by smoothed slabs of gas density in an otherwise uniform magnetic field. The simulations show that there is an energy leakage from the slab, associated with the propagation of wave packets which exhibit both periodic, quasi-periodic and decay phases. The quasi-periodic phase possesses the strongest amplitudes and is thus most likely to correspond with observed time scales.