Bibcode
López Ariste, A.; Martínez González, M. J.; Ramírez Vélez, J. C.
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 464, Issue 1, March II 2007, pp.351-356
Advertised on:
3
2007
Journal
Citations
12
Refereed citations
9
Description
The magnetism in the quiet regions of the solar photosphere carries
information on the dynamo processes and its interaction with the
convection of the outer layers of the sun. Unfortunately, the scales of
the magnetic structures on these regions are mostly unresolved. It is
therefore instrumental to tell apart the intrinsic field strengths in
those regions from the flux through the resolution element. This
disentanglement has been far from obvious, leading to opposing views of
the magnetic topology in the unresolved structures of the quiet Sun. Our
study contributes to the disentanglement of field strength from flux in
the quiet Sun, at least, through the use of new observational constrains
in the form of spectropolarimetry of Mn i lines observed in the solar
spectrum.The chosen Mn lines present a strong coupling with hyperfine
structure resulting in spectral features, present or absent as a
function of field strength alone. We observe one of those lines
simultaneously and co-spatially with the Fe i lines at 630 nm, at the
core of the previous measurements.The inversion of the observed Fe lines
results in either strong or weak fields depending on the initializations
of the inversion algorithm. All the solutions show nevertheless equally
good values for the σ parameter and are therefore equally valuable
as solutions. The Mn however selects unambiguously strong or weak
fields, sometimes agreeing with the inversions of the Fe lines, but half
the time disagreeing with them.The Fe i lines at 630 nm, in the
conditions found in the quiet Sun, carry no binding information on field
strength. A proper analysis of quiet Sun magnetism should necessarily
pass through its simultaneous and co-spatial observation with other
lines imposing constraints on field strength, as the Mn i lines here
analyzed. Ultimately, the magnetic topology of the quiet Sun shall arise
from the coherent analysis of all these lines, sensitive to the Zeeman
effect.