Enhanced damping of Alfven waves in the solar corona by a turbulent wave spectrum

The effect of a background spectrum of Alfven waves on the rate of dissipation of a test shear Alfven wave is numerically calculated. The results demonstrate that as the classical resistivity eta and classical viscosity mu become small, the damping rate of the Alfven wave remains large and depends only on the amplitude for the scalar potential of the wave spectrum and the wavenumber of the Alfven wave. The damping rate is virtually independent of eta and mu. The wave spectrum need not be turbulent or stochastic to affect the damping rate. The dissipation rate is nonlinear enhanced by nonstochastic spectra as well as by stochastic spectra if two conditions are met. First, the perpendicular magnetic field associated with Alfven wave spectrum must exceed a certain collision-frequency threshold and second, for nonstochastic spectra only, the magnetic field must exceed a threshold proportional to the parallel wavenumber of the shear Alfven wave. These conditions can be easily satisfied in the solar corona.