Non-neutral current sheets and solar flare energetics
Somov, B. V., Non-neutral current sheets and solar flare energetics, A&A, 163, 210-218 (1986) (ADS)
(click on the image for a larger version)
This is the black-and-white version of the author's
rainbow flare model.
The helpless Archivist is at the mercy of a clever theorist here, but
it seems that the "non-neutral" description really is equivalent to
"there's a guide field" rather than to the need for electrical potentials
and static charge separation.
The reader should be wary of force-fitting MHD onto a problem
that can't be solved that way; for example, please think carefully about
"frozen into superhot plasma"
in the context of "collisionless" - what part of the distribution function of
what particle species is the field frozen into?
What if the main particle population lies in the tail of the distribution?
The term "superhot" already demands additional and murky physics, given
that Coulomb collisions may not suffice on the time scales needed to
establish a Maxwellian distribution.
This is the black-and-white version of the author's rainbow flare model. The helpless Archivist is at the mercy of a clever theorist here, but it seems that the "non-neutral" description really is equivalent to "there's a guide field" rather than to the need for electrical potentials and static charge separation. The reader should be wary of force-fitting MHD onto a problem that can't be solved that way; for example, please think carefully about "frozen into superhot plasma" in the context of "collisionless" - what part of the distribution function of what particle species is the field frozen into? What if the main particle population lies in the tail of the distribution? The term "superhot" already demands additional and murky physics, given that Coulomb collisions may not suffice on the time scales needed to establish a Maxwellian distribution.