Chemical Fractionation and Abundances in Coronal Plasma

Abstract

Much of modern astrophysics is grounded on the observed chemical compositions of stars and the diffuse plasma that pervades the space between stars, galaxies and clusters of galaxies. X-ray and EUV spectra of the hot plasma in the outer atmospheres of stars have demonstrated that these environments are subject to chemical fractionation in which the abundances of elements can be enhanced and depleted by an order of magnitude or more. These coronal abundance anomalies are discussed and some of the physical mechanisms that might be responsible for producing them are examined. It is argued that coronal abundances can provide important new diagnostics on physical processes at work in solar and stellar coronae. It seems likely that other hot astrophysical plasmas will be subject to similar effects.

10 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Adv.Sp.Res

Cited by in corpus (16)

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• The Density of Coronal Plasma in Active Stellar Coronae
• X-ray Diagnostics of Grain Depletion in Matter Accreting onto T Tauri Stars
• The Coronae of AB Dor and V471 Tau: Primordial angular momentum vs tidal spin-up
• Detection of X-ray Resonance Scattering in Active Stellar Coronae
• The photospheric abundances of active binaries III. Abundance peculiarities at high activity level
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• X-ray spectroscopy of the unsteady quiescent corona of AD Leo with Chandra
• On X-ray Optical Depth in the Coronae of Active Stars
• Some Like it Hot: The X-Ray Emission of The Giant Star YY Mensae
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• Evidence of the FIP effect in the coronae of late-type giants
• High Resolution Spectroscopy of the high galactic latitude RV Tauri star CE Virginis
• Close to the Dredge: Precise X-ray C and N Abundances in lambda Andromeda and its Precocious RGB Mixing Problem