Elemental Composition and Ionization State of the Solar Atmosphere and Solar Wind.
Abstract
Theories of the formation of the solar system are tested by their ability to explain observed abundances, and, elemental abundances can serve as tracers, helping to determine the origin and transport of ions. The theoretical consequences of rapidly diverging flow geometries on the elemental composition of the solar wind, a steady three-fluid model of the solar coronal expansion, is developed for non-spherically symmetric flow geometries of the general sort thought to be characteristic of coronal holes. The validity of ionization equilibrium in the presence of flow, the system of steady mass conservation equations is solved for the ionization stages of carbon under the range of conditions appropriate to the transition region of the sun. The results for carbon for the transition region show that ionization equilibrium can be reasonably valid for some ions but invalid for others, which implies that solar emission spectra and solar wind data could be seriously misinterpreted.
- Publication:
-
Ph.D. Thesis
- Pub Date:
- 1978
- Bibcode:
- 1978PhDT.........3J
- Keywords:
-
- Physics: Astronomy and Astrophysics;
- Elementary Particles;
- Ionization;
- Solar Wind;
- Stellar Atmospheres;
- Elements;
- Equations Of State;
- Equilibrium Equations;
- Flow Geometry;
- Formation;
- Mass Flow;
- Solar Atmosphere;
- Steady State;
- Temperature Gradients;
- Solar Physics