Equilibrium structure of gravito-electrostatic sheath in the presence of inhomogeneous temperature distribution

Department of Physics, Tezpur University - Napaam, 784028, Assam, India

^(a) pkk@tezu.ernet.in

Received: 1 July 2015
Accepted: 2 November 2015

Abstract

The well-established gravito-electrostatic sheath (GES) model, originally devised to study the fundamental issues of the Sun and its atmosphere, is revisited. A bi-fluidic model with the realistic inhomogeneous temperature distribution is formulated. We see that the potential drop across the modified GES and its thickness decrease due to increase in the ion temperature. This is a scale-invariance property in good agreement with the laboratory plasma sheath structure. The temperature inhomogeneity is noticed to play a drastic influential role on the electric current evolution dynamics in both the interior and exterior coupled via the GES-surface. All the interesting and significant electrodynamic properties of the solar plasma system are also investigated in detail. It is found that the self-gravitationally confined solar plasma system can behave both as Ohmic-like (linear) and non-Ohmic (nonlinear) conducting fluids depending on the relative strength of the gravito-electrostatically coupling forces. Also, the solar surface acts as Ohmic-like conductor with minimum electrical conductivity. An elaborate contrast on the diverse significant electromagnetic properties relative to the earlier GES is drawn. Consistency and applicability of our results in the light of the existing literature are highlighted. Possible future refinements with the non-extensive statistical mechanics of the plasma particles are concisely indicated.