Bibcode
                                    
                            Manso Sainz, R.; Roncero, Octavio; Sanz-Sanz, Cristina; Aguado, Alfredo; Asensio Ramos, A.; Trujillo Bueno, J.
    Bibliographical reference
                                    The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 788, Issue 2, article id. 118, 14 pp. (2014).
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                        6
            
                        2014
            
  Journal
                                    
                            Citations
                                    17
                            Refereed citations
                                    12
                            Description
                                    Depolarizing collisions are elastic or quasielastic collisions that
equalize the populations and destroy the coherence between the magnetic
sublevels of atomic levels. In astrophysical plasmas, the main
depolarizing collider is neutral hydrogen. We consider depolarizing
rates on the lowest levels of neutral and singly ionized alkali earths
Mg I, Sr I, Ba I, Mg II, Ca II, and Ba II, due to collisions with
H°. We compute ab initio potential curves of the atom-H° system
and solve the quantum mechanical dynamics. From the scattering
amplitudes, we calculate the depolarizing rates for Maxwellian
distributions of colliders at temperatures T <= 10,000 K. A
comparative analysis of our results and previous calculations in the
literature is completed. We discuss the effect of these rates on the
formation of scattering polarization patterns of resonant lines of
alkali earths in the solar atmosphere, and their effect on Hanle effect
diagnostics of solar magnetic fields.
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            Ernest
            
                        Alsina Ballester