A magnetosonic wave, also called a magnetoacoustic wave, is a linear magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wave that is driven by thermal pressure, magnetic pressure, and magnetic tension. There are two types of magnetosonic waves, the fast magnetosonic wave and the slow magnetosonic wave. Both fast and slow magnetosonic waves are present in the solar corona providing an observational foundation for the technique for coronal plasma diagnostics, coronal seismology. Homogeneous plasma In an ideal homogeneous plasma of infinite extent, and in the absence of gravity, the fast and slow magnetosonic waves form, together with the Alfvén wave, the three basic linear MHD waves. Under the assumption of normal modes, namely that the linear perturbations of the physical quantities are of the form (with the constant amplitude), a dispersion relation of the magnetosonic waves can be derived from the system of ideal MHD equations: where is the Alfvén speed, is the sound speed, is the magnitude of the wave vector and is the component of the wave vector along the background magnetic field (which is straight and constant, because the plasma is assumed homogeneous). This equation can be solved for the frequency , yielding the frequencies of the fast and slow magnetosonic waves: It can be shown that (with the Alfvén frequency), hence the name of "slow" and "fast" magnetosonic waves. Limiting cases Absent magnetic field In the absence of a magnetic field, the whole MHD model reduces to the hydrodynamics (HD) model. In this case , and hence and . The slow wave thus disappears from the system, while the fast wave is just a sound wave, propagating isotropically. Incompressible plasma In case the plasma is incompressible, the sound speed (this follows from the energy equation) and it can then be shown that and . The slow wave thus propagates with the Alfvén speed (although it remains different from an Alfvén wave in its nature), while the fast wave disappears from the system. Cold plasma Under the assumption that the background temperature , it follows from the ideal gas law that the thermal pressure and thus that . In this case, and . Hence there are no slow waves in the system, and the fast waves propagate isotropically with the Alfvén speed. Inhomogeneous plasma In the case of an inhomogeneous plasma (that is, a plasma where at least one of the background quantities is not constant) the MHD waves lose their defining nature