Energy flux of Alfven waves in weakly ionized plasma

Abstract

The overshooting convective motions in the solar photosphere are frequently proposed as the source for the excitation of Alfvén waves. However, the photosphere is a) very weakly ionized, and, b) the dynamics of the plasma particles in this region is heavily influenced by the plasma-neutral collisions. The purpose of this work is to check the consequences of these two facts on the above scenario and their effects on the electromagnetic waves. It is shown that the ions and electrons in the photosphere are both un-magnetized; their collision frequency with neutrals is much larger than the gyro-frequency. This implies that eventual Alfvén-type electromagnetic perturbations must involve the neutrals as well. This has the following serious consequences: i) in the presence of perturbations, the whole fluid (plasma + neutrals) moves; ii) the Alfvén velocity includes the total (plasma + neutrals) density and is thus considerably smaller compared to the collision-less case; iii) the perturbed velocity of a unit volume, which now includes both plasma and neutrals, becomes much smaller compared to the ideal (collision-less) case; and iv) the corresponding wave energy flux for the given parameters becomes much smaller compared to the ideal case.

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