# Heating of a Quiet Region of the Solar Chromosphere by Ion and Neutral Acoustic Waves

## TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution simulations to show how ion-neutral acoustic waves can heat the solar chromosphere, with specific wave periods causing significant temperature increases, though not enough to offset radiative losses.

## Contribution

It demonstrates the role of ion-neutral acoustic waves in chromospheric heating and quantifies the impact of wave period and amplitude on temperature increase.

## Key findings

- Long-period waves deposit energy in the chromosphere.
- Maximum heating occurs at wave periods around 80 seconds.
- Heating is insufficient to balance radiative losses at the studied amplitude.

## Abstract

Using high-resolution numerical simulations we investigate the plasma heating driven by periodic two-fluid acoustic waves that originate at the bottom of the photosphere and propagate into the gravitationally stratified and partially ionized solar atmosphere. We consider ions+electrons and neutrals as separate fluids that interact between themselves via collision forces. The latter play an important role in the chromosphere, leading to significant damping of short-period waves. Long-period waves do not essentially alter the photospheric temperatures, but they exhibit the capability of depositing a part of their energy in the chromosphere. This results in up about a five times increase of ion temperature that takes place there on a time-scale of a few minutes. The most effective heating corresponds to waveperiods within the range of about 30-200 s with a peak value located at 80 s. However, we conclude that for the amplitude of the driver chosen to be equal to 0.1 km s$^{-1}$, this heating is too low to balance the radiative losses in the chromosphere.