Are collisions with neutral hydrogen important for modelling the Second Solar Spectrum of Ti I and Ca II ?

The physical interpretation of scattering line polarization offers a novel diagnostic window for exploring the thermal and magnetic structure of the quiet regions of the solar atmosphere. Here we evaluate the impact of isotropic collisions with neutral hydrogen atoms on the scattering polarization signals of the 13 lines of multiplet 42 of Ti I and on those of the K line and of the IR triplet of Ca II, with emphasis on the collisional transfer rates between nearby J-levels. To this end, we calculate the linear polarization produced by scattering processes considering realistic multilevel models and solving the statistical equilibrium equations for the multipolar components of the atomic density matrix. We confirm that the lower levels of the 13 lines of multiplet 42 of Ti I are completely depolarized by elastic collisions. We find that upper-level collisional depolarization turns out to have an unnoticeable impact on the emergent linear polarization amplitudes, except for the {\lambda 4536 line for which it is possible to notice a rather small depolarization caused by the collisional transfer rates. Concerning the Ca II lines, we show that the collisional rates play no role on the polarization of the upper level of the K line, while they have a rather small depolarizing effect on the atomic polarization of the metastable lower levels of the Ca II IR triplet.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Scattering Polarization of the Ca II IR Triplet for Probing the Quiet Solar Chromosphere

The chromosphere of the quiet Sun is an important stellar atmospheric region whose thermal and magnetic structure we need to decipher for unlocking new discoveries in solar and stellar physics. To this end, we must identify and exploit observables sensitive to weak magnetic fields (B<100 G) and to the presence of cool and hot gas in the bulk of the solar chromosphere. Here we report on an investigation of the Hanle effect in two semi-empirical models of the quiet solar atmosphere with different chromospheric thermal structures. Our study reveals that scattering polarization in the Ca II IR triplet has thermal and magnetic sensitivities potentially of great diagnostic value. The linear polarization in the 8498 A line shows a strong sensitivity to inclined magnetic fields with strengths between 0.001 and 10 G, while the emergent linear polarization in the 8542 A and 8662 A lines is mainly sensitive to magnetic fields with strengths between 0.001 and 0.1 G. The reason for this is that the scattering polarization of the 8542 A and 8662 A lines, unlike the 8498 A line, is controlled mainly by the Hanle effect in their (metastable) lower levels. Therefore, in regions with magnetic strengths sensibly larger than 1 G, their Stokes Q and U profiles are sensitive only to the orientation of the magnetic field vector. We also find that for given magnetic field configurations the sign of the Q/I and U/I profiles of the 8542 A and 8662 A lines is the same in both atmospheric models, while the sign of the linear polarization profile of the 8498 A line turns out to be very sensitive to the thermal structure of the lower chromosphere. We suggest that spectropolarimetric observations providing information on the relative scattering polarization amplitudes of the Ca II IR triplet will be very useful to improve our empirical understanding of the thermal and magnetic structure of the quiet chromosphere.Comment: 27 pages, 16 figures, to appear in Ap

Scattering polarization in the CaII Infrared Triplet with Velocity Gradients

Magnetic field topology, thermal structure and plasma motions are the three main factors affecting the polarization signals used to understand our star. In this theoretical investigation, we focus on the effect that gradients in the macroscopic vertical velocity field have on the non-magnetic scattering polarization signals, establishing the basis for general cases. We demonstrate that the solar plasma velocity gradients have a significant effect on the linear polarization produced by scattering in chromospheric spectral lines. In particular, we show the impact of velocity gradients on the anisotropy of the radiation field and on the ensuing fractional alignment of the CaII levels, and how they can lead to an enhancement of the zero-field linear polarization signals. This investigation remarks the importance of knowing the dynamical state of the solar atmosphere in order to correctly interpret spectropolarimetric measurements, which is important, among other things, for establishing a suitable zero field reference case to infer magnetic fields via the Hanle effect.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures, 3 appendixes, accepted for publication in Ap

Estimating the magnetic field strength from magnetograms

A properly calibrated longitudinal magnetograph is an instrument that measures circular polarization and gives an estimation of the magnetic flux density in each observed resolution element. This usually constitutes a lower bound of the field strength in the resolution element, given that it can be made arbitrarily large as long as it occupies a proportionally smaller area of the resolution element and/or becomes more transversal to the observer and still produce the same magnetic signal. Yet, we know that arbitrarily stronger fields are less likely --hG fields are more probable than kG fields, with fields above several kG virtually absent-- and we may even have partial information about its angular distribution. Based on a set of sensible considerations, we derive simple formulae based on a Bayesian analysis to give an improved estimation of the magnetic field strength for magnetographs.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in A&