The impact of multi-fluid effects in the solar chromosphere on the ponderomotive force under LTE and NEQ ionization conditions

TL;DR

This study investigates how multi-fluid effects, including ion-neutral collisions and non-equilibrium ionization, influence the ponderomotive force in the solar chromosphere, affecting theories on element enrichment in the solar atmosphere.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multi-fluid multi-species numerical code and combines observations with advanced models to analyze the impact of multi-fluid effects on the ponderomotive force.

Findings

Multi-fluid effects significantly alter the ponderomotive force behavior.

Regions with strong network and spicules show large ponderomotive forces.

Existing theories on the FIP effect may need revision due to these effects.

Abstract

The ponderomotive force is suggested to be the main mechanism to produce the so-called first ionization potential (FIP) effect - the enrichment of low FIP elements observed in the outer solar atmosphere. It is well known that the ionization of these elements occurs within the chromosphere. Therefore, this phenomenon is intimately tied to the plasma state in the chromosphere and the corona. In addition, the chromosphere is a highly complex region with a large variation in the ion-neutral collision frequencies, and hydrogen and helium ionization is largely out of equilibrium. For this study, we combine IRIS observations, a single fluid 2.5D radiative magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) model of the solar atmosphere, including ion-neutral interaction effects and non-equilibrium (NEQ) ionization effects, and a novel multi-fluid multi-species (MFMS) numerical code (Ebysus). Nonthermal velocities of Si IV measured from IRIS spectra can provide an upper limit for the strength of any high-frequency Alfven waves. With the single-fluid model, we investigate the possible impact of NEQ ionization within the region where the FIP may occur and the plasma properties in those regions. These models suggest that regions with strong enhanced network and type II spicules are associated with the presence of large ponderomotive forces. From the plasma properties from the single-fluid MHD model and IRIS observations, we initialize our multi-fluid models to investigate the multi-fluid effects on the ponderomotive force associated with Alfven waves. Our multi-fluid analysis reveals that collisions and NEQ ionization effects dramatically impact the behavior of the ponderomotive force in the chromosphere, and existing theories may need to be revisited.