LOWER SOLAR CHROMOSPHERE-CORONA TRANSITION REGION .3. IMPLICATIONS OF THE OBSERVED QUIET-SUN EMISSION MEASURE INCLUDING WAVE PRESSURE EFFECTS

We continue our investigation into the effects of wave pressure in the lower transition region (TR) (104 ≲ T ≲ 105 K) by utilizing the observed form of the emission measure (EM) as a function of temperature to infer the wave energy flux density and pressure throughout the lower TR. This procedure eliminates the need for specifying how the wave energy flux density is damped and addresses the question of whether there is any form of the mechanical heating associated with the degradation of an upward traveling wave energy flux density which is consistent with the observed EM and other observational constraints for the quiet Sun. We find that the observed form of the EM curve is incompatible with waves traveling vertically at the sound speed, regardless of any filling factor arguments. The same conclusion also applies to waves traveling at the Alfvén speed, unless it is assumed that the emission in lower TR lines originates solely from small, spatially unresolved regions of large magnetic field strength (≈100 G), which cover a small fraction (filling factors of ≈1%) of the solar surface. Frequent comparisons are made to the results of Paper II, where a simple damping length form of the heating function was assumed.