Chemi-ionization in solar photosphere: Influence on the hydrogen atom excited states population

Abstract

In this paper, the influence of chemi-ionization processes in H*(n ≥ 2) + H(1s) collisions, as well as the influence of inverse chemi-recombination processes on hydrogen atom excited-state populations in solar photosphere, are compared with the influence of concurrent electron-atom and electron-ion ionization and recombination processes. It has been found that the considered chemi-ionization/recombination processes dominate over the relevant concurrent processes in almost the whole solar photosphere. Thus, it is shown that these processes and their importance for the non-local thermodynamic equilibrium modeling of the solar atmosphere should be investigated further. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.