Polarized light scattering with Paschen-Back effect, level-crossing of fine structure states and partial frequency redistribution

Abstract

The quantum interference between the fine structure states of an atom modifies the shapes of the emergent Stokes profiles in the Second Solar Spectrum. This phenomenon has been studied in great detail both in the presence and absence of magnetic fields. By assuming a flat-spectrum for the incident radiation, the signatures of this effect have been explored for arbitrary field strengths. Even though the theory which takes into account the frequency dependence of the incident radiation is well developed, it is restricted to the regime in which the magnetic splitting is much smaller than the fine structure splitting. In the present paper, we carry out a generalization of our scattering matrix formalism including the effects of partial frequency redistribution (PRD) for arbitrary magnetic fields. We test the formalism using available benchmarks for special cases. In particular we apply it to the Li\,{\sc i} 6708\,Å D${}_1$ and D${}_2$ line system, for which observable effects from the Paschen-Back regime are expected in the Sun's spectrum.

arXiv comment13 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in the ApJ

References in corpus (5)

• Theory and Modeling of the Zeeman and Paschen-Back effects in Molecular Lines
• Polarized line formation with J-state interference in the presence of magnetic fields: A heuristic treatment of collisional frequency redistribution
• Polarized scattering with Paschen-Back effect, hyperfine structure, and partial frequency redistribution in magnetized stellar atmospheres
• The physical origin and the diagnostic potential of the scattering polarization in the lithium resonance doublet at 6708 A
• First polarimetric measurements and modeling of the Paschen-Back effect in CaH transitions

Cited by in corpus (4)

• The transfer of resonance line polarization with partial frequency redistribution in the general Hanle-Zeeman regime
• Master equation theory applied to the redistribution of polarized radiation in the weak radiation field limit. V. The two-term atom
• Explicit Form of the Radiative and Collisional Branching Ratios in Polarized Radiation Transport with Coherent Scattering
• Polarized scattering of light for arbitrary magnetic fields with level-crossings from the combination of hyperfine and fine structure splittings