  One of the proposed damping mechanisms of coronal (transverse) loop
oscillations in the kink-mode is resonant absorption as a result of the Alfven
speed variation at the outer boundary of coronal loops. Analytical expressions
for the period and damping time exist for loop models with thin non-uniform
boundaries. Here we measure the thickness of the non-uniform layer in
oscillating loops for 11 events, by forward-fitting of the cross-sectional
density profile and line-of-sight integration to the cross-sectional fluxes
observed with TRACE 171 A. This way we model the internal and external electron
density of the coronal plasma in oscillating loops. This allows us to test the
theoretically predicted damping rates for thin boundaries as function of the
density ratio. We find that the density ratio predicted by the damping time is
higher than the density ratio estimated from the background fluxes. The lower
densities modeled from the background fluxes are likely to be a consequence of
the neglected hotter plasma that is not detected with the TRACE 171 A filter.
Taking these correction into account, resonant absorption predicts damping
times of kink-mode oscillations that are commensurable with the observed ones
and provides a new diagnostic of the density contrast of oscillating loops.
