The circular polarization of the Mn I resonance lines around 280 nm for exploring chromospheric magnetism

Abstract

We study the circular polarization of the Mn I resonance lines at 279.56, 279.91, and 280.19 nm (hereafter, UV multiplet) by means of radiative transfer modeling. In 2019, the CLASP2 mission obtained unprecedented spectropolarimetric data in a region of the solar ultraviolet including the Mg II h and k resonance lines and two lines of a subordinate triplet, as well as two Mn I resonance lines. The first analysis of such data, in particular those corresponding to a plage region, allowed the inference of the longitudinal magnetic field from the photosphere to the upper chromosphere just below the transition region. This was achieved by applying the weak field approximation to the circular polarization profiles of the Mg II and Mn I lines. While the applicability of this approximation to the Mg II lines was already demonstrated in previous works, this is not the case for the Mn I UV multiplet. These lines are observed as absorptions between the Mg II h and k lines, a region whose intensity is shaped by their partial frequency redistribution effects. Moreover, the only Mn I stable isotope has nuclear spin $I=5/2$ and thus hyperfine structure must be, a priori, taken into account. Here we study the generation and transfer of the intensity and circular polarization of the Mn I resonance lines accounting for these physical ingredients. We analyze their sensitivity to the magnetic field by means of their response function, and we demonstrate the applicability of the weak field approximation to determine the longitudinal component of the magnetic field.

Accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (6)

• Magnetic Diagnostics of the Solar Chromosphere with the Mg II h-k Lines
• Mapping Solar Magnetic Fields from the Photosphere to the Base of the Corona
• The magnetic sensitivity of the Mg ii k line to the joint action of Hanle, Zeeman and magneto-optical effects
• The magnetic sensitivity of the resonance and subordinate lines of Mg II in the solar chromosphere
• Formation of MnI lines in the solar atmosphere
• The transfer of polarized radiation in resonance lines with partial frequency redistribution, J-state interference, and arbitrary magnetic fields. A radiative transfer code and useful approximations

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Tomography of a solar plage with the Tenerife Inversion Code
• Evidence for the Operation of the Hanle and Magneto-Optical Effects in the Scattering Polarization Signals Observed by CLASP2 Across the Mg II h and k Lines
• Determining the Magnetic Field in the Atmosphere of a Solar Active Region Observed by the CLASP2.1 Sounding Rocket Experiment