Alfven wave heating in partially ionized thin threads of solar prominences

TL;DR

This study models Alfvén wave dissipation in solar prominence threads, showing that wave heating can significantly contribute to prominence energy balance, especially in partially ionized regions, with LTE conditions enhancing dissipation.

Contribution

It presents a simplified 1D model analyzing Alfvén wave heating in partially ionized prominence threads, highlighting the importance of ionization state and LTE assumptions for wave dissipation.

Findings

Wave heating offsets radiative cooling in prominence threads.

LTE conditions lead to higher dissipation due to lower ionization.

Wave heating is negligible in fully ionized coronal plasma.

Abstract

There is observational evidence of the presence of small-amplitude transverse magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves with a wide range of frequencies in the threads of solar prominences. It is believed that the waves are driven at the photosphere and propagate along the magnetic field lines up to prominences suspended in the corona. The dissipation of MHD wave energy in the partially ionized prominence plasma is a heating mechanism whose relevance needs to be explored. Here we consider a simple 1D model for a non-uniform thin thread and investigate the heating associated with dissipation of Alfven waves. The model assumes an ad hoc density profile and a uniform pressure, while the temperature and ionization degree are self-consistently computed considering either LTE or non-LTE approximations for the hydrogen ionization. A broadband driver for Alfven waves is placed at one end of the magnetic field line, representing photospheric excitation. The Alfvenic perturbations along the thread are obtained by solving the linearized MHD equations for a partially ionized plasma in the single-fluid approximation.We find that wave heating in the partially ionized part of the thread is significant enough to compensate for energy losses due to radiative cooling. A greater amount of heating is found in the LTE case because the ionization degree for core prominence temperatures is lower than that in the non-LTE approximation. This results in a greater level of dissipation due to ambipolar diffusion in the LTE case. Conversely, in the hot coronal part of the model, the plasma is fully ionized and wave heating is negligible. The results of this simple model suggest that MHD wave heating can be relevant for the energy balance in prominences. Further studies based on more elaborate models are required.