Thomson Scattering in the Solar Corona

Abstract

The basis for the application of Thomson scattering to the analysis of coronagraph images has been laid decades ago.Even though the basic formulation is undebated, a discussion has grown in recent years about the spatial distribution of Thomson scatter sensitivity in the corona and the inner heliosphere. These notes are an attempt to clarify the understanding of this topic. We reformulate the classical scattering calculations in a more transparent way using modern SI-compatible quantities extended to field correlation matrices. The resulting concise formulation is easily extended to the case of relativistic electrons. For relativistic electrons we calculate the Stokes parameters of the scattered radiation and determine changes in degree and orientation of its polarisation, blue-shift and radiant intensities depending on the electron velocity magnitude and direction. We discuss the probability to see these relativistic effects in white-light coronagraph observations of the solar corona. Many mathematical and some basic physical ingredients are made explicit in several chapters of the appendix.

104 pages, 31 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Spectropolarimetry of Supernovae
• Statistical thermodynamics of a two dimensional relativistic gas
• Using Coordinated Observations in Polarised White Light and Faraday Rotation to Probe the Spatial Position and Magnetic Field of an Interplanetary Sheath

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Coronal Photopolarimetry with the LASCO-C2 Coronagraph over 24 Years [1996-2019] -- Application to the K/F Separation and to the Determination of the Electron Density
• Automated Detection of Coronal Mass Ejections in STEREO Heliospheric Imager data
• Evolution of Coronal Cavity from Quiescent to Eruptive Phase in Association with Coronal Mass Ejection
• Imaging Polarimetry of the 2017 Solar Eclipse with the RIT Polarization Imaging Camera