scholarly journals The history of polarisation measurements: their role in studies of magnetic fields

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (H16) ◽  
pp. 383-383
Author(s):  
R. Wielebinski

Radio astronomy gave us new methods to study magnetic fields. Synchrotron radiation, the main cause of comic radio waves, is highly linearly polarised with the ‘E’ vector normal to the magnetic field. The Faraday Effect rotates the ‘E’ vector in thermal regions by the magnetic field in the line of sight. Also the radio Zeeman Effect has been observed.

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (S302) ◽  
pp. 130-133
Author(s):  
A. López Ariste

RésuméWe suggest the use of the area asymmetries of the Stokes V profile of a line sensitive to the Zeeman effect to diagnose variatios of the magnetic field along the line of sight in stellar atmospheres. This tool could allow to disentangle the magnetic topology of the observed stellar features in analogy to the solar case: a fibril topology as in plage and netwrok magnetic fields vs. a homogeneous and strong field as in sunspots. We also suggest the use of the Hanle effect as a means to observe weak global dipoles.


2020 ◽  
Vol 500 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-176
Author(s):  
Stefan Reissl ◽  
Amelia M Stutz ◽  
Ralf S Klessen ◽  
Daniel Seifried ◽  
Stefanie Walch

ABSTRACT The degree to which the formation and evolution of clouds and filaments in the interstellar medium is regulated by magnetic fields remains an open question. Yet the fundamental properties of the fields (strength and 3D morphology) are not readily observable. We investigate the potential for recovering magnetic field information from dust polarization, the Zeeman effect, and the Faraday rotation measure (RM) in a SILCC-Zoom magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) filament simulation. The object is analysed at the onset of star formation and it is characterized by a line-mass of about $\mathrm{\left(M/L\right) \sim 63\ \mathrm{M}_{\odot }\ pc^{-1}}$ out to a radius of $1\,$ pc and a kinked 3D magnetic field morphology. We generate synthetic observations via polaris radiative transfer (RT) post-processing and compare with an analytical model of helical or kinked field morphology to help interpreting the inferred observational signatures. We show that the tracer signals originate close to the filament spine. We find regions along the filament where the angular dependence with the line of sight (LOS) is the dominant factor and dust polarization may trace the underlying kinked magnetic field morphology. We also find that reversals in the recovered magnetic field direction are not unambiguously associated to any particular morphology. Other physical parameters, such as density or temperature, are relevant and sometimes dominant compared to the magnetic field structure in modulating the observed signal. We demonstrate that the Zeeman effect and the RM recover the line-of-sight magnetic field strength to within a factor 2.1–3.4. We conclude that the magnetic field morphology may not be unambiguously determined in low-mass systems by observations of dust polarization, Zeeman effect, or RM, whereas the field strengths can be reliably recovered.


1958 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 166-168
Author(s):  
Y. öhman

When measuring the magnetic fields of sunspots the astronomer assumes that the magnetic field revealed by the inverse Zeeman effect is the same as if the splitting were produced by emission lines instead of absorption lines. No doubt this is in general a very fair approximation, but we have reason to remember sometimes that line absorption in the presence of magnetic fields is a very complicated process. In the immediate neighbourhood of absorption lines effects of magnetic rotation of the plane of polarization and magnetic double refraction may appear in the spectrum.


1993 ◽  
Vol 139 ◽  
pp. 132-132
Author(s):  
G. Mathys

Magnetic field appears to play a major role in the pulsations of rapidly oscillating Ap (roAp) stars. Understanding of the behaviour of these objects thus requires knowledge of their magnetic field. Such knowledge is in particular essential to interpret the modulation of the amplitude of the photometric variations (with a frequency very close to the rotation frequency of the star) and to understand the driving mechanism of the pulsation. Therefore, a systematic programme of study of the magnetic field of roAp stars has been started, of which preliminary (and still very partial) results are presented here.Magnetic fields of Ap stars can be diagnosed from the Zeeman effect that they induced in spectral lines either from the observation of line-splitting in high-resolution unpolarized spectra (which only occurs in favourable circumstances) or from the observation of circular polarization of the lines in medium- to high-resolution spectra.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (S354) ◽  
pp. 454-457
Author(s):  
K. Sowmya ◽  
A. Lagg ◽  
S. K. Solanki ◽  
J. S. Castellanos Durán

AbstractAn active region filament in the upper chromosphere is studied using spectropolarimetric data in He i 10830 Å from the GREGOR telescope. A Milne-Eddingon based inversion of the Unno-Rachkovsky equations is used to retrieve the velocity and the magnetic field vector of the region. The plasma velocity reaches supersonic values closer to the feet of the filament barbs and coexist with a slow velocity component. Such supersonic velocities result from the acceleration of the plasma as it drains from the filament spine through the barbs. The line-of-sight magnetic fields have strengths below 200 G in the filament spine and in the filament barbs where fast downflows are located, their strengths range between 100 - 700 G.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (S302) ◽  
pp. 385-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnès Lèbre ◽  
Michel Aurière ◽  
Nicolas Fabas ◽  
Denis Gillet ◽  
Fabrice Herpin ◽  
...  

AbstractSo far, surface magnetic fields have never been reported on Mira stars, while observational facilities allowing detection and measurement of weak surface fields through the Zeeman effect have become available. Then, in order to complete the knowledge of the magnetic field and of its influence during the transition from Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) to Planetary Nebulae (PN) stages, we have undertaken a search for magnetic fields at the surface of Miras. We present the first spectropolarimetric observations (performed with the Narval instrument at Télescope Bernard Lyot-TBL, Pic du Midi, France) of the S-type Mira star χ Cyg. We have detected a polarimetric signal in the Stokes V spectra and we have established its Zeeman origin. We claim that it is likely to be related to a weak magnetic field present at the photospheric level and in the lower part of the stellar atmosphere. The origin of this magnetic field is discussed in the framework of shock waves periodically propagating throughout the atmosphere of a Mira.


2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (S273) ◽  
pp. 338-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Véronique Bommier ◽  
Egidio Landi Degl'Innocenti ◽  
Brigitte Schmieder ◽  
Bernard Gelly

AbstractThe context is that of the so-called “fundamental ambiguity” (also azimuth ambiguity, or 180° ambiguity) in magnetic field vector measurements: two field vectors symmetrical with respect to the line-of-sight have the same polarimetric signature, so that they cannot be discriminated. We propose a method to solve this ambiguity by applying the “simulated annealing” algorithm to the minimization of the field divergence, added to the longitudinal current absolute value, the line-of-sight derivative of the magnetic field being inferred by the interpretation of the Zeeman effect observed by spectropolarimetry in two lines formed at different depths. We find that the line pair Fe I λ 6301.5 and Fe I λ 6302.5 is appropriate for this purpose. We treat the example case of the δ-spot of NOAA 10808 observed on 13 September 2005 between 14:25 and 15:25 UT with the THEMIS telescope. Besides the magnetic field resolved map, the electric current density vector map is also obtained. A strong horizontal current density flow is found surrounding each spot inside its penumbra, associated to a non-zero Lorentz force centripetal with respect to the spot center (i.e., oriented towards the spot center). The current wrapping direction is found to depend on the spot polarity: clockwise for the positive polarity, counterclockwise for the negative one. This analysis is made possible thanks to the UNNOFIT2 Milne-Eddington inversion code, where the usual theory is generalized to the case of a line (Fe I λ 6301.5) that is not a normal Zeeman triplet line (like Fe I λ 6302.5).


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (S325) ◽  
pp. 59-62
Author(s):  
Olga Botygina ◽  
Mykola Gordovskyy ◽  
Vsevolod Lozitsky

AbstractThe structure of photospheric magnetic fields outside sunspots is investigated in three active regions using Hinode/Solar Optical Telescope(SOT) observations. We analyze Zeeman effect in FeI 6301.5 and FeI 6302.5 lines and determine the observed magnetic field value Beff for each of them. We find that the line ratio Beff(6301)/Beff(6302) is close to 1.3 in the range Beff < 0.2 kG, and close to 1.0 for 0.8 kG < Beff < 1.2 kG. We find that the observed magnetic field is formed by flux tubes with the magnetic field strengths 1.3 − 2.3 kG even in places with weak observed magnetic field fluxes. We also estimate the diameters of smallest magnetic flux tubes to be 15 − 20 km.


2013 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 106-110
Author(s):  
LUCA NASO ◽  
JOHN MILLER ◽  
WLODEK KLUŹNIAK

Accretion disks are ubiquitous in the universe and it is generally accepted that magnetic fields play a pivotal role in accretion-disk physics. The spin history of millisecond pulsars, which are usually classified as magnetized neutron stars spun up by an accretion disk, depends sensitively on the magnetic field structure, and yet highly idealized models from the 80s are still being used for calculating the magnetic field components. We present a possible way of improving the currently used models with a semi-analytic approach. The resulting magnetic field profile of both the poloidal and the toroidal component can be very different from the one suggested previously. This might dramatically change our picture of which parts of the disk tend to spin the star up or down.


Author(s):  
V. Lozitsky

It is shown that it is quite possible to measure spatially unresolved magnetic fields of mixed polarity by the Zeeman effect if their intensity exceeds 150-200 G. This means that one can interconnect the ranges of the registration of these fields based on the Hanle and Zeeman effects. This thesis is illustrated by the results of calculations of the half-width of the Stokes profile I for the FeI 5247.1 and 5250.2 lines. Parameter I is sensitive to the presence of magnetic fields, regardless of whether they have the same magnetic polarity within the input aperture of the instrument, or the opposite one. According to the calculations, if the accuracy of the measurement of the half-width ratio of these two lines is increased to 0.5 %, then it is possible to measure the magnetic fields from 70-100 G. On the basis of the proposed method, an estimate of the intensity of the magnetic fields of mixed polarity in a solar faculae in the tail part of the active region NOAA 1809 was made, which on the day of observations, August 6, 2013, was located not far from the Sun’s disc center. The Echelle Zeeman-spectrogram of this region was obtained on the Horizontal Solar Telescope of Astronomical Observatory of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. The magnetic field in the faculae was measured in two ways: by shift of of the “center of gravity”of the profiles of the FeI 5247.1 and FeI 5250.2 Ǻ lines in the I + V i I – V spectra and also by the half-width ratio of the profiles I of these lines. The first method allows to measure the effective magnetic field Beff, which turned out to be 280 G by FeI 5250.2 and 360 G by FeI 5247.1. The corresponding ratio Beff (5247.1) / Beff (5250.2) ≈ 1.3 indicates the existence of the sub-telescopic flux tubes with kilogauss fields. However, the ratio of the half-width of the Stokes I profiles of these two lines is 1.08, which corresponds to the magnetic field ± 650 G, if magnetic field is purely longitudinal. Based on the analysis of these data as well as the results of other studies, one can conclude that in the investigated faculae there were probably three magnetic field field components: the fluxtubes with kG field Bfluxtube, the areas of background field Bbackgr of regular magnetic polarity, and the areas of subtelescopic fields Bmixpol of mixed magnetic polarity. In absolute value the magnetic flux of tangled mixed-polarity field exceeds the flux of entire regular field with the intensities of Bfluxtube and Bbackgr at least 2-fold.


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