No Arabic abstract
It was recently proposed that the intensity ratios of several extreme ultraviolet spectral lines from the Fe X ion can be used to measure the solar coronal magnetic field based on the magnetic-field-inducedtransition (MIT) theory. To verify the suitability of this method, we performed forward modelingwith a three-dimensional radiation magnetohydrodynamic model of a solar active region. Intensities of several spectral lines from Fe X were synthesized from the model. Based on the MIT theory, intensity ratios of the MIT line Fe X 257 A to several other Fe X lines were used to derive the magnetic field strengths, which were then compared with the field strengths in the model. We also developed a new method to simultaneously estimate the coronal density and temperature from the Fe X 174/175 and 184/345 A line ratios. Using these estimates, we demonstrated that the MIT technique can provide reasonably accurate measurements of the coronal magnetic field in both on-disk and off-limb solar observations. Our investigation suggests that a spectrometer that can simultaneously observe the Fe X 174, 175, 184, 257, and 345 A lines and allow an accurate radiometric calibration for these lines is highly desired to achieve reliable measurements of the coronal magnetic field. We have also evaluatedthe impact of the uncertainty in the Fe X 3p4 3d 4D5/2 and 4D7/2 energy difference on the magnetic field measurements.
The characteristic electron densities, temperatures, and thermal distributions of 1MK active region loops are now fairly well established, but their coronal magnetic field strengths remain undetermined. Here we present measurements from a sample of coronal loops observed by the Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on Hinode. We use a recently developed diagnostic technique that involves atomic radiation modeling of the contribution of a magnetically induced transition (MIT) to the Fe X 257.262A spectral line intensity. We find coronal magnetic field strengths in the range of 60--150G. We discuss some aspects of these new results in the context of previous measurements using different spectropolarimetric techniques, and their influence on the derived Alfv{e}n speeds and plasma $beta$ in coronal loops.
Measurements of the magnetic field in the stellar coronae are extremely difficult. Recently, it was proposed that the magnetic-field-induced transition (MIT) of the Fe X 257 {AA} line can be used to measure the coronal magnetic field of the Sun. We performed forward modeling with a series of global stellar magnetohydrodynamics models to investigate the possibility of extending this method to other late-type stars. We first synthesized the emissions of several Fe X lines for each stellar model, then calculated the magnetic field strengths using the intensity ratios of Fe X 257 {AA} to several other Fe X lines based on the MIT theory. Finally, we compared the derived field strengths with those in the models, and concluded that this method can be used to measure at least the magnetic field strengths at the coronal bases of stars with a mean surface magnetic flux density about one order of magnitude higher than that of the Sun. Our investigation suggests the need of an extreme ultraviolet spectrometer to perform routine measurements of the stellar coronal magnetic field.
The Type-II solar radio burst recorded on 13 June 2010 by the radio spectrograph of the Hiraiso Solar Observatory was employed to estimate the magnetic-field strength in the solar corona. The burst was characterized by a well pronounced band-splitting, which we used to estimate the density jump at the shock and Alfven Mach number using the Rankine-Hugoniot relations. The plasma frequency of the Type-II bursts is converted into height [R] in solar radii using the appropriate density model, then we estimated the shock speed [Vs], coronal Alfven velocity [Va], and the magnetic-field strength at different heights. The relative bandwidth of the band-split is found to be in the range 0.2 -- 0.25, corresponding to the density jump of X = 1.44 -- 1.56, and the Alfven Mach number of MA = 1.35 -- 1.45. The inferred mean shock speed was on the order of V ~ 667 km/s. From the dependencies V(R) and MA(R) we found that Alfven speed slightly decreases at R ~ 1.3 -- 1.5. The magnetic-field strength decreases from a value between 2.7 and 1.7 G at R ~ 1.3 -- 1.5 Rs depending on the coronal-density model employed. We find that our results are in good agreement with the empirical scaling by Dulk and McLean (Solar Phys. 57, 279, 1978) and Gopalswamy et al. (Astrophys. J. 744, 72, 2012). Our result shows that Type-II band splitting method is an important tool for inferring the coronal magnetic field, especially when independent measurements were made from white light observations.
We investigated the coronal properties of G-dwarf stars including the Sun over a wide range of X-ray luminosity $L_{rm X}$ ($3times 10^{26}$ to $2times 10^{30}~{rm erg~s^{-1}}$). We analyzed the archival data of ten X-ray bright ($L_{it X}>10^{28}~{rm erg~s^{-1}}$) G-dwarf stars to derive their emission measure (EM) and the coronal temperature ($T$) during the periods when no prominent stellar flares were observed. We attempted to explain the relation on the basis of our understanding of the present Sun: a steady corona model based on the so-called RTV scaling laws and the observed power-law distribution function of surface magnetic features. We derived a theoretical scaling law of the EM--$T$ relation for a star with multiple active regions, and applied it to the observations combined with data in literature. We found that with the solar parameters, our scaling law seems to be consistent with the data of slowly-rotating stars. However, more X-ray bright stars are located well above the scaling law based on the solar parameter. The scaling law may explain the observations if those stars show a power-law distribution function of active regions with the same power-law index but a 10-100 times larger coefficient. This suggests that X-ray bright stars show more active regions for a given size than the Sun. Since our samples include rapidly-rotating stars, we infer that the offset of the X-ray bright stars from the present-Sun-based scaling law is due to the enhancement of the surface magnetic field generation by their rapid rotation.
We have studied the relationship between the solar-wind speed $[V]$ and the coronal magnetic-field properties (a flux expansion factor [$f$] and photospheric magnetic-field strength [$B_{mathrm{S}}$]) at all latitudes using data of interplanetary scintillation and solar magnetic field obtained for 24 years from 1986 to 2009. Using a cross-correlation analyses, we verified that $V$ is inversely proportional to $f$ and found that $V$ tends to increase with $B_{mathrm{S}}$ if $f$ is the same. As a consequence, we find that $V$ has extremely good linear correlation with $B_{mathrm{S}}/f$. However, this linear relation of $V$ and $B_{mathrm{S}}/f$ cannot be used for predicting the solar-wind velocity without information on the solar-wind mass flux. We discuss why the inverse relation between $V$ and $f$ has been successfully used for solar-wind velocity prediction, even though it does not explicitly include the mass flux and magnetic-field strength, which are important physical parameters for solar-wind acceleration.