Study of Interplanetary Magnetic Field with Ground State Alignment

Abstract

We demonstrate a new way of studying interplanetary magnetic field -- Ground State Alignment (GSA). Instead of sending thousands of space probes, GSA allows magnetic mapping with any ground telescope facilities equipped with spectropolarimeter. The polarization of spectral lines that are pumped by the anisotropic radiation from the Sun is influenced by the magnetic realignment, which happens for magnetic field (<1G). As a result, the linear polarization becomes an excellent tracer of the embedded magnetic field. The method is illustrated by our synthetic observations of the Jupiter's Io and comet Halley. Polarization at each point was constructed according to the local magnetic field detected by spacecrafts. Both spatial and temporal variations of turbulent magnetic field can be traced with this technique as well. The influence of magnetic field on the polarization of scattered light is discussed in detail. For remote regions like the IBEX ribbons discovered at the boundary of interstellar medium, GSA provides a unique diagnostics of magnetic field.

11 pages, 19 figures, published in Astrophysics and Space Science

References in corpus (4)

• Polarization of absorption lines as a diagnostics of circumstellar, interstellar and intergalactic magnetic fields: Fine structure atoms
• Atomic alignment and Diagnostics of Magnetic Fields in Diffuse Media
• Polarization from aligned atoms as a diagnostics of circumstellar, AGN and interstellar magnetic fields: II. Atoms with Hyperfine Structure
• Tracing Magnetic Fields with Ground State Alignment

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Discovery of polarizations from ground state absorption lines: tracer of sub-Gauss magnetic field on 89Her
• Polarisation of submillimetre lines from interstellar medium
• Tracing Magnetic Fields by Atomic Alignment in Extended Radiation Fields
• Ultraviolet Spectropolarimetry with Polstar: Interstellar Medium Science
• Magnetic field measurement from the Davis-Chandrasekhar-Fermi method employed with Atomic Alignment
• The influence of atomic alignment on absorption and emission spectroscopy