Bibcode
Štěpán, J.; Trujillo Bueno, J.; Leenaarts, J.; Carlsson, M.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 803, Issue 2, article id. 65, 15 pp. (2015).
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4
2015
Journal
Citations
48
Refereed citations
41
Description
Probing the magnetism of the upper solar chromosphere requires measuring
and modeling the scattering polarization produced by anisotropic
radiation pumping in UV spectral lines. Here we apply PORTA (a novel
radiative transfer code) to investigate the hydrogen Lyα line in a
three-dimensional model of the solar atmosphere resulting from a state
of the art magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation. At full spatial
resolution the linear polarization signals are very significant all over
the solar disk, with a large fraction of the field of view (FOV) showing
line-center amplitudes well above the 1% level. Via the Hanle effect the
line-center polarization signals are sensitive to the magnetic field of
the model's transition region, even when its mean field strength is only
15 G. The breaking of the axial symmetry of the radiation field produces
significant forward-scattering polarization in Lyα, without the
need of an inclined magnetic field. Interestingly, the Hanle effect
tends to decrease such forward-scattering polarization signals in most
of the points of the FOV. When the spatial resolution is degraded, the
line-center polarization of Lyα drops below the 1% level, reaching
values similar to those previously found in one-dimensional (1D)
semi-empirical models (i.e., up to about 0.5 %). The center to limb
variation (CLV) of the spatially averaged polarization signals is
qualitatively similar to that found in 1D models, with the largest
line-center amplitudes at μ =cos θ ≈ 0.4 (θ being
the heliocentric angle). These results are important, both for designing
the needed space-based instrumentation and for a reliable interpretation
of future observations of the Lyα polarization.
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