Bibcode
Kano, R.; Trujillo-Bueno, J.; Winebarger, A.; Auchère, F.; Narukage, N.; Ishikawa, R.; Kobayashi, K.; Bando, T.; Katsukawa, Y.; Kubo, M.; Ishikawa, S.; Giono, G.; Hara, H.; Suematsu, Y.; Shimizu, T.; Sakao, T.; Tsuneta, S.; Ichimoto, K.; Goto, M.; Belluzzi, L.; Štěpán, J.; Asensio Ramos, A.; Manso Sainz, R.; Champey, P.; Cirtain, J.; De Pontieu, B.; Casini, R.; Carlsson, M.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 839, Issue 1, article id. L10, 6 pp. (2017).
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4
2017
Citations
49
Refereed citations
42
Description
There is a thin transition region (TR) in the solar atmosphere where the
temperature rises from 10,000 K in the chromosphere to millions of
degrees in the corona. Little is known about the mechanisms that
dominate this enigmatic region other than the magnetic field plays a key
role. The magnetism of the TR can only be detected by polarimetric
measurements of a few ultraviolet (UV) spectral lines, the Lyα
line of neutral hydrogen at 121.6 nm (the strongest line of the solar UV
spectrum) being of particular interest given its sensitivity to the
Hanle effect (the magnetic-field-induced modification of the scattering
line polarization). We report the discovery of linear polarization
produced by scattering processes in the Lyα line, obtained with
the Chromospheric Lyman-Alpha Spectro-Polarimeter (CLASP) rocket
experiment. The Stokes profiles observed by CLASP in quiet regions of
the solar disk show that the Q/I and U/I linear polarization signals are
of the order of 0.1% in the line core and up to a few percent in the
nearby wings, and that both have conspicuous spatial variations with
scales of ˜10 arcsec. These observations help constrain theoretical
models of the chromosphere-corona TR and extrapolations of the
magnetic field from photospheric magnetograms. In fact, the observed
spatial variation from disk to limb of polarization at the line core and
wings already challenge the predictions from three-dimensional
magnetohydrodynamical models of the upper solar chromosphere.
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