© Lloyd

==SOLAR ELECTRIC DISCHARGE
__MM: Scott nailed the glow mode discharge aspects
__CC: Our most fundamental understanding of the Sun has to be framed in the context of granules, helmet streamers and the like as these are always present.
__MM: The light source of all iron ion SDO [images] are the loops but the photosphere is in a state of glow mode discharge due to the currents flowing from the cathode below.
__It's not coronal loops we observe from the photosphere it's the white light generated by the surface of the photosphere.
__CC: Do we agree that the Sun is net negative?
__BC: YES!!!
__CC: Do you think that these electrons then flow out of the photosphere toward the interplanetary medium which is positively charged?
__**[Electrons move through the positive photosphere because it's too hot for them to combine with ions.]
__[This contradicts Brant's idea that the photosphere is much cooler than conventionally estimated.]
__BC: YES. They flow outward because there is "less" electrons beyond the solar surface.
__I think we figured that there only needed to be a difference of 3000 electrons per cubic meter in the solar wind to produce an electric current great enough to power the sun.
__The evidence that bulk electrons are leaving the Sun is the heat and light generated in the photosphere.
__This is a sustained arc discharge.
__The evidence that the electrons are exiting the Sun rather than arriving at it is the nature of the discharge.
__With the Sun as a cathode the electrons distribute themselves around the edge [all over the surface], [then] leave the cathode [and are] headed for the heliosphere …
__They accelerate away which is what we would expect for electrons that were close to a current divider.
__The further they get from the current divider the less ambiguous the field and they accelerate.
__We can also see the outward flow in coronagraphs.
__If the Sun was an anode we'd expect the electron streams to get pinched into discrete channels as they approached the positively charged Sun.
__the flow of electrons would take the form of lightning burrowing through the solar atmosphere.
__There are plenty of references to "electron strahl" which are beams of electrons leaving the Sun and are typically found at the tips of helmet streams and in spicules.
__Yet I'm saying that electrons are departing the Sun from every point on the sphere while only in rare cases are they organized enough to catch our attention.
__I arrived at this position by playing with a variety of constructs and the only one that could produce the full compliment of observed properties was the one that had the Sun as a cathode emitting 2.93×10^15 A which causes 4.99×10^24 W of ohmic heating.
==HELMET STREAMERS
__CC: The helmet streamers in the corona baffled me for the longest time.
__And the fact that the particles accelerate away from the Sun which wouldn't make any sense at all if the electrons were flowing in from outer space because they would accelerate toward the Sun
__but it makes perfect sense if the electrons are breaking away from a current divider near the Sun's surface and then accelerating toward a positive charge in the interplanetary medium.
__Did you see my work-up on the solar power output considering that CMEs are expelling positive ions from the positively charged photosphere and that the electron flow is the equal but opposite [charge?] reaction to that?
__I can account for the power output to within an order of magnitude.
__coronal loops". They are actually discharge currents and they appear ALL OVER THE SPHERE.
__If we look at the corona during an eclipse we can see streamers flowing FAR out into space where the currents flow from the sun toward the heliosphere.
__LK: coronal streamers during an eclipse ...
__these are flows of electrons away from the source plowing into positive plasma that might just be sitting there or might even be flowing into the sun (as Brant suggests).
__Notice that the pinching occurs away from the sun.
__MM: IMO those are "current carrying" streamers. :)
__IMO *ALL* current carrying filaments are a result of the current flow between the surface and the heliosphere.
__Not all filaments are powerful enough to heat iron to millions of degrees and not all current carrying threads are composed of exactly the same materials IMO.
__CC: I think that streamers are electrons generated by thermionic emissions from the photosphere accelerated away from the sun by electrostatic repulsion from an underlying body of negative charge and attracted to positive plasma in the heliosphere.
__I consider this to be evidence of electron streams leaving the Sun.
__They would only emanate from such a broad region if they were widely dispersed as the emissions of a cathode sitting on a current divider (with positive charges both above and below).
__Hence the electron streams accelerate as they move away from the divider and eventually get pinched into electron strahls at the tips of the helmet streamers.
__I don't find any of the constructs for dispersion of incoming electrons (e.g. "magnetic broadening") to be fully mechanistic.
==SOLAR WIND
__[See:] Solar Wind Origin Regions
__CC: I agree that in an electric field there is a bi-directional flow with protons going one way and electrons going the other.
__Yet I also agree that eventually the solar wind measured in our neighborhood is comprised of positive ions and electrons traveling in the same direction.
__And I agree that it is likely that the ions got drug along motivated primarily by the electron flow.
__Once impacted by enough electrons the ions will be moving and if they capture electrons and get neutralized they no longer care about the electric field.
__So they just have the Newtonian force from the electron stream.
__LK: [re] the acceleration of the solar wind with distance from the Sun ... Wikipedia seems to discuss it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind - Here's a chart of the solar wind speed: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/wExAnuZP7S5As6uo5ba1YgOgU59nmxc_trJmRJYiCCf ErXRodVLqQDxgiHHKsQs0MrXhu_vVl92BB0-_RaxI1vySbXEVG3NxEPLvXihSXc5AL0--vtk
__CC: it looks like most of the acceleration is near the Sun which doesn't put it outside of my model. But they're just quoting "models".
__I want to see the data. Voyager has collected solar wind data all of the way out to the heliopause. So somewh[ere] there are hard facts.
__If most of the acceleration is within the first 10 solar radii my interpretation of that is that it's electrons being accelerated toward the positive plasma in space.
__The acceleration ends when the electrons have all paired up with ions and there is no longer a net electric force.
__The net neutrality of the solar wind from within this framework is developed after-the-fact by the electron stream picking up positive ions in the corona.
__[The Sun] is constantly creating and releasing electrons and protons in a high energy state. ...
__The sun is always releasing charged particles and always generates heat.
__The electrons are lighter than protons and therefore they "flow" first. That flow however is quite powerful.
__Once they leave the surface of the photosphere they accelerate rapidly and they are continually attracted toward the heliosphere until they reach it.