Context. Transverse loop oscillations and loop contractions are commonly associated with solar flares, but the two types of motion have traditionally been regarded as separate phenomena. Aims. We present an observation of coronal loops that contract and oscillate following the onset of a flare. We aim to explain why both behaviours are seen together and why only some of the loops oscillate. Methods. A time sequence of SDO/AIA 171 Å images is analysed to identify the positions of coronal loops following the onset of the M6.4 flare SOL2012-03-09T03:53. We focus on five loops in particular, all of which contract during the flare, with three of them oscillating as well. A simple model is then developed for the contraction and oscillation of a coronal loop. Results. We propose that coronal loop contractions and oscillations can occur in a single response to removal of magnetic energy from the corona. Our model reproduces the various types of loop motion observed and explains why the highest loops oscillate during their contraction, while no oscillation is detected for the shortest contracting loops. The proposed framework suggests that loop motions can be used as a diagnostic for the removal of coronal magnetic energy by flares, while rapid decrease in coronal magnetic energy is a newly identified excitation mechanism for transverse loop oscillations.

The European Solar Telescope (EST) is a project aimed at studying the magnetic connectivity of the solar atmosphere, from the deep photosphere to the upper chromosphere. Its design combines the knowledge and expertise gathered by the European solar physics community during the construction and operation of state-of-the-art solar telescopes operating in visible and near-infrared wavelengths: the Swedish 1m Solar Telescope, the German Vacuum Tower Telescope and GREGOR, the French Télescope Héliographique pour l’Étude du Magnétisme et des Instabilités Solaires, and the Dutch Open Telescope. With its 4.2 m primary mirror and an open configuration, EST will become the most powerful European ground-based facility to study the Sun in the coming decades in the visible and near-infrared bands. EST uses the most innovative technological advances: the first adaptive secondary mirror ever used in a solar telescope, a complex multi-conjugate adaptive optics with deformable mirrors that form part of the optical design in a natural way, a polarimetrically compensated telescope design that eliminates the complex temporal variation and wavelength dependence of the telescope Mueller matrix, and an instrument suite containing several (etalon-based) tunable imaging spectropolarimeters and several integral field unit spectropolarimeters. This publication summarises some fundamental science questions that can be addressed with the telescope, together with a complete description of its major subsystems.

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