TWO-TEMPERATURE MODELS FOR POLAR PLUMES: COOLING BY MEANS OF STRONG BASE HEATING

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In earlier one-fluid hydrodynamical calculations incorporating heat conduction and radiative losses, it was shown that the high densities in polar plumes could be reproduced by including a concentrated heat source near the plume base, in addition to the global heating required in both the plume and interplume regions of the coronal hole. The extra heating (attributed to interchange reconnection between the open flux and an underlying magnetic bipole) results in lower flow speeds and temperatures relative to the interplume gas, predictions that have since been confirmed by spectroscopic measurements. Here, the model is extended to the two-fluid case, in which ions and electrons are allowed to have different temperatures, coupling is via Coulomb collisions, and heat transport is mainly by electrons. Again, we find that depositing energy very close to the coronal base, in either the protons or electrons (or both), raises the densities and decreases the flow speeds everywhere along the flux tube. The higher densities in turn act to lower the ion temperatures by coupling the protons more closely to the energy-losing electrons. In addition, we find that energy must be deposited globally in both the electrons and the ions; without this direct heating, the electrons would end up cooler in the interplume region than in the plume, contrary to observations. Increasing the rate of flux-tube expansion has the effect of lowering the electron and ion temperatures and reducing the asymptotic flow speed, both in the plume and the interplume region; the observed densities and temperatures can be matched by taking the magnetic field to fall off with radius roughly as r –4.