Solar Polarimetry

A comprehensive review of state-of-the-art techniques, models and research methods in modern astronomical polarimetry.

Annotation This proceedings volume of the September 2000 workshop presents recent developments in spectropolarimetry and the measurement of solar magnetic fields using the Zeeman and Hanle effects. The 67 papers address new instrumentation for telescopes, weak polarization and coronal magnetic fields, infrared polarimetry and the physics of active regions, magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations, high resolutions polarimetry and the physics of flux tubes, and the analysis of Stokes profiles. No subject index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Magnetic fields are responsible for much of the variability and structuring in the universe, but only on the Sun can the basic magnetic field related processes be explored in detail. While several excellent textbooks have established a diagnostic foundation for exploring the physics of unmagnetized stellar atmospheres through spectral analysis, no corresponding treatise for magnetized stellar atmospheres has been available. The present monograph fills this gap. The theoretical foundation for the diagnostics of stellar magnetism is developed from first principles in a comprehensive way, both within the frameworks of classical physics and quantum field theory, together with a presentation of the various solar applications. This textbook can serve as an introduction to solar and stellar magnetism for astronomers and physicists at the graduate or advanced undergraduate level and will also become a resource book for more senior scientists with a general interest in cosmic magnetic fields.

The advances in solar, planetary, and extrasolar science employing polarimetric tools are far-reaching, and the pace of discovery is accelerating rapidly. In the last three decades, the emphasis of solar polarimetry has been to achieve simultaneously high spectral, spatial, and temporal resolution for all four Stokes parameters. In the field of stellar polarimetry the developments have been equally impressive, in allowing the detection and surface mapping of magnetic fields across the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. This volume, arising from IAU Symposium 305, is devoted to sharing advances in science, data analysis, modeling, and instrumentation between solar and non-solar polarimetry communities. Given the relevance of polarimetric measurements to many aspects of astrophysics, the techniques and physical interpretations addressed within the book will be of interest to a wide audience of researchers and advanced students, in addition to those from solar and stellar communities.

Much progress has been made in recent years in understanding the complex physics of polarized radiation in the sun and stars. This physics includes vector radiative transfer and spectral line formation in the presence of magnetic fields, scattering theory and coherence effects, partial redistribution and turbulent magnetic fields, numerical techniques and Stokes inversion, as well as concepts for polarimetric imaging with a precision limited only by photon statistics. The present volume gives a comprehensive and up-to-date account of this rapidly evolving field of science.

This is a follow-on book to the introductory textbook "Physics of the Solar Corona" previously published in 2004 by the same author, which provided a systematic introduction and covered mostly scientific results from the pre-2000 era. Using a similar structure as the previous book the second volume provides a seamless continuation of numerous novel research results in solar physics that emerged in the new millennium (after 2000) from the new solar missions of RHESSI, STEREO, Hinode, CORONAS, and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) during the era of 2000-2018. The new solar space missions are characterized by unprecedented high-resolution imaging, time resolution, spectral capabilities, stereoscopy and tomography, which reveal the intricate dynamics of magneto-hydrodynamic processes in the solar corona down to scales of 100 km. The enormous amount of data streaming down from SDO in Terabytes per day requires advanced automated data processing methods. The book focuses exclusively on new research results after 2000, which are reviewed in a comprehensive manner, documented by over 3600 literature references, covering theory, observations, and numerical modeling of basic physical processes that are observed in high-temperature plasmas of the Sun and other astrophysical objects, such as plasma instabilities, coronal heating, magnetic reconnection processes, coronal mass ejections, plasma waves and oscillations, or particle acceleration.