No Arabic abstract
Spectral lines of helium are commonly observed on the Sun. These observations contain important informations about physical conditions and He/H abundance variations within solar outer structures. The modeling of chromospheric and coronal loop-like structures visible in hydrogen and helium lines requires the use of appropriate diagnostic tools based on NLTE radiative tranfer in cylindrical geometry. We use iterative numerical methods to solve the equations of NLTE radiative transfer and statistical equilibrium of atomic level populations. These equations are solved alternatively for the hydrogen and helium atoms, using cylindrical coordinates and prescribed solar incident radiation. Electron density is determined by the ionization equilibria of both atoms. Two-dimension effects are included. The mechanisms of formation of the principal helium lines are analyzed and the sources of emission inside the cylinder are located. The variations of spectral line intensities with temperature, pressure, and helium abundance, are studied. The simultaneous computation of hydrogen and helium lines, performed by the new numerical code, allows the construction of loop models including an extended range of temperatures.
We solved the radiative transfer and statistical equilibrium equations in a two-dimensional cross-section of a cylindrical structure oriented horizontally and lying above the solar surface. The cylinder is filled with a mixture of hydrogen and helium and is illuminated at a given altitude from the solar disc. We constructed simple models made from a single thread or from an ensemble of several threads along the line of sight. This first use of two-dimensional, multi-thread fine structure modelling combining hydrogen and helium radiative transfer allowed us to compute synthetic emergent spectra from cylindrical structures and to study the effect of line-of-sight integration of an ensemble of threads under a range of physical conditions. We analysed the effects of variations in temperature distribution and in gas pressure. We considered the effect of multi-thread structures within a given field of view and the effect of peculiar velocities between the structures in a multi-thread model. We compared these new models to the single thread model and tested them with varying parameters. These new computations show, for the first time, the effect of integrating the radiation emitted in H and He lines by several cylindrical threads that are static or moving along the line of sight. They can be used to interpret high-spatial and spectral resolutions of cylindrical structures found in the solar atmosphere, such as cool coronal loops or prominence threads.
We compare maps of scattering polarization signals obtained from three-dimensional (3D) radiation transfer calculations in a magneto-convection model of the solar atmosphere using formal solvers based on the short characteristics (SC) and the long characteristics (LC) methods. The SC method requires less computational work, but it is known to introduce spatial blurring in the emergent radiation for inclined lines of sight. For polarized radiation this effect is generally more severe due to it being a signed quantity and to the sensitivity of the scattering polarization to the models inhomogeneities. We study the differences in the polarization signals of the emergent spectral line radiation calculated with such formal solvers. We take as a case study already published results of the scattering polarization in the Sr I $4607~unicode{xC5}$ line obtained with the SC method, demonstrating that in high-resolution grids it is accurate enough for that type of study. In general, the LC method is the preferred one for accurate calculations of the emergent radiation, reason why it is now one of the options in the public version of the 3D radiative transfer code PORTA.
In a recent paper (Chabrier et al. 2019), we have derived a new equation of state (EOS) for dense hydrogen/helium mixtures which covers the temperature-density domain from solar-type stars to brown dwarfs and gaseous planets. This EOS is based on the so-called additive volume law and thus does not take into account the interactions between the hydrogen and helium species. In the present paper, we go beyond these calculations by taking into account H/He interactions, derived from quantum molecular dynamics simulations. These interactions, which eventually lead to H/He phase separation, become important at low temperature and high density, in the domain of brown dwarfs and giant planets. The tables of this new EOS are made publicly available.
The rate coefficient for radiative charge transfer between the helium ion and an argon atom is calculated. The rate coefficient is about $10^{-14}$ cm${}^3$/s at 300 K in agreement with earlier experimental data.
Many stars, active galactic nuclei, accretion discs etc. are affected by the stochastic variations of temperature, turbulent gas motions, magnetic fields, number densities of atoms and dust grains. These stochastic variations influence on the extinction factors, Doppler widths of lines and so on. The presence of many reasons for fluctuations gives rise to Gaussian distribution of fluctuations. The usual models leave out of account the fluctuations. In many cases the consideration of fluctuations improves the coincidence of theoretical values with the observed data. The objective of this paper is the investigation of the influence of the number density fluctuations on the form of radiative transfer equations. We consider non-magnetized atmosphere in continuum.