Heating of current filaments associated with nonlinear Alfven waves in weakly ionized plasmas

When large amplitude Alfven waves propagate along homogeneous magnetic field in weakly ionized plasmas, current filaments are formed by a small density perturbation. We show results from a 2-dimensional simulation that localized plasma heating occurs around the filaments. In high beta plasma, heating and density concentration occur where the current filaments bunching doesn't occur, because the amplitude of Alfven waves associated with current filaments is large. In weakly ionized plasmas, structures of current filaments and density concentration and heating regions are localized more sharply than the fully ionized plasmas. We apply the results to plasma heating process in the photosphere of the Sun.