Thanks for the info, VanderL.

I note that "weak [radial] electric field" occurs just once in the first document ("It is easy to see that we have within the solar plasma sheath a weak but constant electric field that accelerates solar protons away from the Sun in the form of the solar wind and causes electrons to drift toward the Sun (and causes negatively charged spacecraft, like Pioneer 10, to accelerate anomalously backwards toward the Sun). The overall result of the charge drifts in opposite directions is the current that lights the Sun."), and that the theory of this field is (apparently) attributed to Alfvén ("IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Vol. PS-14, No. 6, Dec 1986").

If any BAUT reader were to check that Alfvén reference, would they find any (OOM) estimates of the field (e.g. volts per au)? If not, where might such estimates be found (in EU literature or otherwise)? If there are no such estimates, what is the meaning of the term 'weak'?

The phrase "weak [radial] electric field" also occurs just once in the second article ("The next most important feature of the positive column region of a spherical glow discharge is that throughout most of its volume the plasma maintains a weak but constant radial electric field."). This second article does not attribute the underlying theory to Alfvén, but to "Ralph Juergens". Specifically, to a modified version of Juergens' idea ("I propose that Juergens' model be modified and that interplanetary space is the extensive 'positive column' region of a glow discharge"). Where might one read the (quantitative) details of this 'modified Juergens' model'? Specifically, where can one read the (quantitative) reasoning for the term 'weak'?

Incidentally, the second article also contains the following phrase: "Astronomers in the 20th century were never taught the physics of gas discharges, and the idea of electricity in space was anathema to them." For avoidance of doubt, would you please state unambiguously if you are (or are not) prepared to defend this?