Testing Alfvén wave propagation in a “realistic” set-up of the solar atmosphere

Abstract

We present a radiative magneto-hydrodynamic simulation set-up using the pencil code to study the generation, propagation and dis- sipation of Alfvén waves in the solar atmosphere which includes a convective layer, photosphere below and chromosphere, transition region and the corona above. We prepare a set-up of steady-state solar convection where the imposed external magnetic field also has reached the final value gradually starting from a very small value. From that state, we start several simulations by varying the magnetic Prandtl number and the forcing strengths. We find the propaga- tion characteristics of waves excited in this simulation run depend strongly on the magnetic Prandtl number and the wave number of the forcing. For magnetic Prandtl number of unity, we obtain localised heating in the corona due to shock dissipation.