Improved Search of Principal Component Analysis Databases for Spectro-polarimetric Inversion

Casini, R.; Asensio-Ramos, A.; Lites, B. W.; López Ariste, A.
Bibliographical reference

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 773, Issue 2, article id. 180, 11 pp. (2013).

Advertised on:
8
2013
Number of authors
4
IAC number of authors
1
Citations
8
Refereed citations
6
Description
We describe a simple technique for the acceleration of spectro-polarimetric inversions based on principal component analysis (PCA) of Stokes profiles. This technique involves the indexing of the database models based on the sign of the projections (PCA coefficients) of the first few relevant orders of principal components of the four Stokes parameters. In this way, each model in the database can be attributed a distinctive binary number of 24n bits, where n is the number of PCA orders used for the indexing. Each of these binary numbers (indices) identifies a group of "compatible" models for the inversion of a given set of observed Stokes profiles sharing the same index. The complete set of the binary numbers so constructed evidently determines a partition of the database. The search of the database for the PCA inversion of spectro-polarimetric data can profit greatly from this indexing. In practical cases it becomes possible to approach the ideal acceleration factor of 24n as compared to the systematic search of a non-indexed database for a traditional PCA inversion. This indexing method relies on the existence of a physical meaning in the sign of the PCA coefficients of a model. For this reason, the presence of model ambiguities and of spectro-polarimetric noise in the observations limits in practice the number n of relevant PCA orders that can be used for the indexing.
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