Bibcode
Casini, R.; Manso Sainz, R.
Referencia bibliográfica
Solar Polarization 4, ASP Conference Series, Vol. 358, Proceedings of the conference held 19-23 September, 2005, in Boulder, Colorado, USA. Edited by R. Casini and B. W. Lites, p.429
Fecha de publicación:
12
2006
Número de citas
1
Número de citas referidas
1
Descripción
We reviewed the polarization properties of hydrogen lines in the
presence of electric and magnetic fields. We first considered the case
of completely depolarized hydrogen atoms. Under this assumption, the
hydrogen lines manifest complex polarization signatures due to the
combined Stark and Zeeman effect tep{c0 CL93}. One can derive
convenient analytic expressions for the 1st and 2nd-order moments of the
Stokes profile, which nicely summarize the fundamental properties of
hydrogen polarization for both cases of deterministic and
micro-turbulent electric and magnetic fields tep{c0 CL94,c0 CL95,c0
Ca97}. In particular, it is demonstrated the ``additivity'' of the Stark
and Zeeman effects on such integral properties of the line polarization
emitted by a gas of depolarized hydrogen atoms. We then generalized the
problem to include the possibility of atomic polarization induced in the
hydrogen atoms by anisotropic excitation mechanisms (e.g., in
chromospheric and coronal plasmas). The complexity of the problem makes
it intractable by analytic means, and one must resort to numerical
tools. The results show that, in the presence of atomic polarization,
the ``additivity'' of the electric and magnetic effects is lost, and an
intricated interplay of the two effects occurs tep{c0 Ca05}. In
particular, we considered two hydrogen lines of diagnostic
relevance-Lyα and Hα-formed in a magnetized plasma, and
demonstrated the modifications of the scattering polarization that are
induced by the additional presence of turbulent, electric microfields of
various strengths (typically, the normal field strength of the Holtsmark
theory, for various electron densities of the plasma). We showed that
the additional presence of these electric microfields can significantly
enhance the amount of net circular polarization (NCP) of the Hα
line for a given magnetic strength, which can be produced by the
so-called alignment-to-orientation transfer mechanism tep[e.g.,][]{c0
La82,c0 Ke84,c0 LL04}, even if the electric microfield distribution is
perfectly isotropic tep[see Fig. ref{c0 NCP};][]{c0 CM06}. We argued
that this mechanism could explain the large levels of NCP that have
recently been detected in several quiescent prominences tep{c0 LA05},
and discussed the implications of this study for the diagnostics of
magnetic fields in the solar atmosphere using hydrogen lines.