© Charles Chandler

 

"On the idea that strong electric fields are causing ionized iron, how strong of a field to cause the effects? The strength of the field at the top of the corona is ~200eV."

 

I don't know, and I'm not sure I actually know where to start, to get that nailed down. I actually think that it's a combination of factors, but the ionization isn't just temperature. It's partly that, but it's also the electric field, and it's also the steady stream of electrons flowing through the corona, that keep knocking things loose (i.e., electron temperature, in addition to ion temperature). In that mix, what exactly is the electric field component??? :) 200 eV is a pretty big number, and no, I wouldn't attribute that to just the electric field. I guess the place to start is just with a knowledge of how much field it takes to strip an electron of how much potential. Do you know where those numbers are? Then we could look at electron temperature?