MAGNETIC DIAGNOSTICS OF THE SOLAR CHROMOSPHERE WITH THE Mg II h–k LINES
- High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000 (United States)
- Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Justus-von-Liebig-Weg 3, D-37077 Göttingen (Germany)
We investigated the formation of the Mg ii h–k doublet in a weakly magnetized atmosphere (20–100 G) using a newly developed numerical code for polarized radiative transfer in a plane-parallel geometry, which implements a recent formulation of partially coherent scattering by polarized multi-term atoms in arbitrary magnetic-field regimes. Our results confirm the importance of partial redistribution effects in the formation of the Mg ii h and k lines, as pointed out by previous work in the non-magnetic case. We show that the presence of a magnetic field can produce measurable modifications of the broadband linear polarization even for relatively small field strengths (∼10 G), while the circular polarization remains well represented by the classical magnetograph formula. Both these results open an important new window for the weak-field diagnostics of the upper solar atmosphere.
- OSTI ID:
- 22654181
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 830, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2041-8205
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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