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Long-period EUV pulsations, recently discovered to be common in active regions, are understood to be the coronal manifestation of thermal nonequilibrium (TNE). The active regions previously studied with EIT/Solar and Heliospheric Observatory and AIA/SDO indicated that long-period intensity pulsations are localized in only one or two loop bundles. The basic idea of this study is to understand why. For this purpose, we tested the response of different loop systems, using different magnetic configurations, to different stratifications and strengths of the heating. We present an extensive parameter-space study using 1D hydrodynamic simulations (1020 in total) and conclude that the occurrence of TNE requires specific combinations of parameters. Our study shows that the TNE cycles are confined to specific ranges in parameter space. This naturally explains why only some loops undergo constant periodic pulsations over several days: since the loop geometry and the heating properties generally vary from one loop to another in an active region, only the ones in which these parameters are compatible exhibit TNE cycles. Furthermore, these parameters (heating and geometry) are likely to vary significantly over the duration of a cycle, which potentially limits the possibilities of periodic behavior. This study also confirms that long-period intensity pulsations and coronal rain are two aspects of the same phenomenon: both phenomena can occur for similar heating conditions and can appear simultaneously in the simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In solar coronal loops, thermal non-equilibrium (TNE) is a phenomenon that can occur when the heating is both highly stratified and quasi-constant. Unambiguous observational identification of TNE would thus permit us to strongly constrain heating scenarios. While TNE is currently the standard interpretation of coronal rain, the long-term periodic evolution predicted by simulations has never been observed. However, the detection of long-period intensity pulsations (periods of several hours) has been recently reported with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory/EIT, and this phenomenon appears to be very common in loops. Moreover, the three intensity-pulsation events that we recently studied with the Solar Dynamics Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) show strong evidence for TNE in warm loops. In this paper, a realistic loop geometry from linear force-free field (LFFF) extrapolations is used as input to 1D hydrodynamic simulations. Our simulations show that, for the present loop geometry, the heating has to be asymmetrical to produce TNE. We analyze in detail one particular simulation that reproduces the average thermal behavior of one of the pulsating loop bundle observed with AIA. We compare the properties of this simulation with those deduced from the observations. The magnetic topology of the LFFF extrapolations points to the presence of sites of preferred reconnection at one footpoint, supporting the presence of asymmetric heating. In addition, we can reproduce the temporal large-scale intensity properties of the pulsating loops. This simulation further strengthens the interpretation of the observed pulsations as signatures of TNE. This consequently provides important information on the heating localization and timescale for these loops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We recently detected variations in extreme ultraviolet intensity in coronal loops repeating with periods of several hours. Models of loops including stratified and quasi-steady heating predict the development of a state of thermal non-equilibrium (TNE): cycles of evaporative upflows at the footpoints followed by falling condensations at the apex. Based on Fourier and wavelet analysis, we demonstrate that the observed periodic signals are indeed not signatures of vibrational modes. Instead, superimposed on the power law expected from the stochastic background emission, the power spectra of the time series exhibit the discrete harmonics and continua expected from periodic trains of pulses of random amplitudes. These characteristics reinforce our earlier interpretation of these pulsations as being aborted TNE cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Fourier and wavelet analysis, we critically re-assess the significance of our detection of periodic pulsations in coronal loops. We show that the proper identification of the frequency dependence and statistical properties of the different components of the power spectra provides a strong argument against the common practice of data detrending, which tends to produce spurious detections around the cut-off frequency of the filter. In addition, the white and red noise models built into the widely used wavelet code of Torrence & Compo cannot, in most cases, adequately represent the power spectra of coronal time series, thus also possibly causing false positives. Both effects suggest that several reports of periodic phenomena should be re-examined. The Torrence & Compo code nonetheless effectively computes rigorous confidence levels if provided with pertinent models of mean power spectra, and we describe the appropriate manner in which to call its core routines. We recall the meaning of the default confidence levels output from the code, and we propose new Monte-Carlo-derived levels that take into account the total number of degrees of freedom in the wavelet spectra. These improvements allow us to confirm that the power peaks that we detected have a very low probability of being caused by noise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quasi-constant heating at the footpoints of loops leads to evaporation and condensation cycles of the plasma: thermal non-equilibrium (TNE). This phenomenon is believed to play a role in the formation of prominences and coronal rain. However, it is often discounted as being involved in the heating of warm loops because the models do not reproduce observations. Recent simulations have shown that these inconsistencies with observations may be due to oversimplifications of the geometries of the models. In addition, our recent observations reveal that long-period intensity pulsations (several hours) are common in solar coronal loops. These periods are consistent with those expected from TNE. The aim of this paper is to derive characteristic physical properties of the plasma for some of these events to test the potential role of TNE in loop heating. We analyzed three events in detail using the six EUV coronal channels of the Solar Dynamics Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly. We performed both a differential emission measure (DEM) and a time-lag analysis, including a new method to isolate the relevant signal from the foreground and background emission. For the three events, the DEM undergoes long-period pulsations, which is a signature of periodic heating even though the loops are captured in their cooling phase, as is the bulk of the active regions. We link long-period intensity pulsations to new signatures of loop heating with strong evidence for evaporation and condensation cycles. We thus simultaneously witness widespread cooling and TNE. Finally, we discuss the implications of our new observations for both static and impulsive heating models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]