Multi-fluid Simulations of Small-scale Collisional Plasma Instabilities in the Solar Chromosphere
Abstract
The chromosphere may be the most complex region in the solar atmosphere. The neutral flows, metal ions, magnetic field structure, radiation, and non-local thermal equilibrium effects may all play an important role in heating the solar atmosphere from a few thousand Kelvin to over a million Kelvin. The chromosphere also spans temperature ranges that cause it to transition between predominantly neutral to predominantly ionized, and the ions to transition from demagnetized to magnetized. The flows, densities, and temperatures of the various species in this region, along with the electric and magnetic fields, create conditions which can trigger the multi-species thermal plus Farley-Buneman instability. This instability causes the plasma to develop waves that lead to turbulence and heating, which may help to explain the discrepancy between models and observations of heating in the chromosphere. In this work, we present simulations of this instability, using the multi-fluid multi-species (MFMS) code, Ebysus. These simulations model a small piece of the coldest regions of the chromosphere with a realistic, but externally imposed current. We analyze the resulting heating, and compare the simulation with results from a particle-in-cell (PIC) code. The ability to simulate this instability in a multi-fluid code should enable simulations with chromospheric parameters unobtainable by a PIC code. We expect the result of this study will be to determine the effects of this type of small-scale turbulence on heating and transport in the larger scale solar atmosphere.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2021
- Bibcode:
- 2021AGUFMSH25A2073E