Problem of Alfvén waves in solar photosphere

The convective motion in the weakly ionized solar photosphere, where only a tiny fraction of the gas is ionized, covers the complete solar surface. The purpose of this work is to check if this motion can be a source for the excitation of electromagnetic Alfvén-type waves. Using the standard plasma theory, the magnetization and collision frequencies of the plasma components are examined. Based on these results, an analysis of small electromagnetic perturbations in the photospheric plasma is performed. It is shown that the convective neutral motion in the lower photosphere can efficiently carry the plasma species along. However, the ions in this region appear to be completely un-magnetized and thus they can not support Alfvén-type electromagnetic perturbations. The collisions remain so frequent that the Alfévn waves are strongly damped.