Solar Wind Electron Transport: Interplanetary Electric Field and Heat Conduction

Abstract

The presence of suprathermal electrons has important consequences on the acceleration process of the solar wind: they increase the electrostatic potential between the corona and the interplanetary space and accelerate of the solar wind to high bulk velocities. Moreover, they modify the heat conduction and can explain the sharp increase of the temperature in the solar corona. These consequences are well evidenced in the kinetic approach where no closure requires the distributions to be nearly Maxwellian