Two-dimensional radiative magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the importance of partial ionization in the chromosphere

Abstract

The bulk of the solar chromosphere is weakly ionized and interactions between ionized particles and neutral particles likely have significant consequences for the thermodynamics of the chromospheric plasma. We investigate the importance of introducing neutral particles into the MHD equations using numerical 2.5D radiative MHD simulations obtained with the Bifrost code. The models span the solar atmosphere from the upper layers of the convection zone to the low corona, and solve the full MHD equations with non-gray and non-LTE radiative transfer, and thermal conduction along the magnetic field. The effects of partial ionization are implemented using the generalized Ohm's law, i.e., we consider the effects of the Hall term and ambipolar diffusion in the induction equation. The approximations required in going from three fluids to the generalized Ohm's law are tested in our simulations. The Ohmic diffusion, Hall term, and ambipolar diffusion show strong variations in the chromosphere. These strong variations of the various magnetic diffusivities are absent or significantly underestimated when, as has been common for these types of studies, using the semi-empirical VAL-C model as a basis for estimates. In addition, we find that differences in estimating the magnitude of ambipolar diffusion arise depending on which method is used to calculate the ion-neutral collision frequency. These differences cause uncertainties in the different magnetic diffusivity terms. In the chromosphere, we find that the ambipolar diffusion is of the same order of magnitude or even larger than the numerical diffusion used to stabilize our code. As a consequence, ambipolar diffusion produces a strong impact on the modeled atmosphere. Perhaps more importantly, it suggests that at least in the chromospheric domain, self-consistent simulations of the solar atmosphere driven by magnetoconvection can accurately describe the impact of the dominant form of resistivity, i.e., ambipolar diffusion. This suggests that such simulations may be more realistic in their approach to the lower solar atmosphere (which directly drives the coronal volume) than previously assumed. © 2012. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.