Oxygen is the most abundant element on the Sun after Hydrogen and Helium. The intensity spectrum of resonance lines of neutral Oxygen namely O {sc i} (1302, 1305 and 1306 AA,) has been studied in the literature for chromospheric diagnostics. In this
paper we study the resonance scattering polarization in the O {sc i} line at 1302 AA, using two-dimensional radiative transfer in a composite atmosphere constructed using a two-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamical snapshot in the photosphere and columns of the one-dimensional FALC atmosphere in the chromosphere. The methods developed by us recently in a series of papers to solve multi-dimensional polarized radiative transfer have been incorporated in our new code POLY2D which we use for our analysis. We find that multi-dimensional radiative transfer including XRD effects is important in reproducing the amplitude and shape of scattering polarization signals of the O {sc i} line at 1302 AA,.
We present a new determination of the solar fluorine abundance together with abundance measurements of fluorine in two Galactic open clusters. We analyzed a sunspot spectrum, observed by L. Wallace and W. Livingston with the FTS at the McMath/Pierce
Solar Telescope situated on Kitt Peak and spectra of four giants in the old cluster M 67 ($sim$4.5 Gyr) and three giants in the young cluster NGC 6404 ($sim$0.5 Gyr), obtained with the CRIRES spectrograph at VLT. Fluorine was measured through synthesis of the available HF lines. We adopted the recent set of experimental molecular parameters of HF delivered by the HITRAN database, and found a new solar fluorine abundance of $A(F) = 4.40pm 0.25$, in good agreement with the M 67 average fluorine abundance of $A(F) = 4.49pm 0.20$. The new solar abundance is in a very good agreement with the meteoritic value. The used modern spectrosynthesis tools, the agreement with the meteoritic value and with the results in open cluster M67, known to be a solar analogue, make our solar determination very robust. At the same time, the fluorine measurement in the above-mentioned open clusters is the first step in the understanding of its evolution during the last $sim$10 Gyr in the Galactic disk. In order to develop this project, a larger sample of open clusters is required, so that it would allow us to trace the evolution of fluorine as a function of time and, in turn, to better understand its origin.
We discuss spectropolarimetric measurements of photospheric (Fe I 630.25 nm) and chromospheric (Ca II 854.21 nm) spectral lines. Our long-term goal is to diagnose properties of the magnetic field near the base of the corona. We compare ground-based t
wo-dimensional spectropolarimetric measurements with (almost) simultaneous space-based slit spectropolarimetry. The ground-based observations were obtained May 20, 2008, with IBIS in spectropolarimetric mode, The space observations were obtained with the Spectro-Polarimeter aboard the HINODE satellite. The agreement between the near-simultaneous co-spatial IBIS and HINODE Stokes-V profiles at 630.25 nm is excellent, with V/I amplitudes compatible with to within 1 %. IBIS QU measurements are affected by residual crosstalk from V, arising from calibration inaccuracies, not from any inherent limitation of imaging spectroscopy. We use a PCA analysis to quantify the detected cross talk. Chromospheric magnetic fields are difficult to constrain by polarization of Ca II lines alone. However, we demonstrate that high cadence, high angular resolution monochromatic images of fibrils in Ca II and H-alpha, can be used to improve the magnetic field constraints, under conditions of high electrical conductivity. Such work is possible only with time series datasets from two-dimensional spectroscopic instruments under conditions of good seeing.
Filtergrams obtained in Ca II H, Ca II K and H-alpha are often employed as diagnostics of the solar chromosphere. However, the vastly disparate appearance between the typical filtergrams in these different lines calls into question the nature of what
is actually being observed. We investigate the lack of obvious structures of magnetic origin such as fibrils and mottles in on-disk Ca II H and K images by directly comparing a temporal sequence of classical Ca II K filtergrams with a co-spatial and co-temporal sequence of spectrally resolved Ca II 854.2 images obtained with the Interferometric Bidimensional Spectrometer (IBIS), considering the effect of both the spectral and spatial smearing. We find that the lack of fine magnetic structuring in Ca II K filtergrams, even with the narrowest available filters, is due to observational effects. Signatures of fibrils remain however in the temporal evolution of the filtergrams, in particular with the evidence of magnetic shadows around the network elements. The Ca II K filtergrams do not appear, however, to properly reflect the high-frequency behavior of the chromosphere. Using the same analysis, we find no significant chromospheric signature in the Hinode/SOT Ca II H quiet-Sun filtergrams. The picture provided by H-alpha and Ca II 854.2, which show significant portions of the chromosphere dominated by magnetic structuring, appears to reflect the true and essential nature of the solar chromosphere. Data which do not resolve, spatially or spectrally, this aspect may misrepresent the behavior the chromosphere.
(Abridged) Aims: In this paper, we seek to establish the suitability of imaging spectroscopy performed in the Ca II 854.2 nm line as a means to investigate the solar chromosphere at high resolution. Methods: We utilize monochromatic images obtain
ed with the Interferometric BIdimensional Spectrometer (IBIS) at multiple wavelengths within the Ca II 854.2 nm line and over several quiet areas. We analyze both the morphological properties derived from narrow-band monochromatic images and the average spectral properties of distinct solar features such as network points, internetwork areas and fibrils. Results: The spectral properties derived over quiet-Sun targets are in full agreement with earlier results obtained with fixed-slit spectrographic observations, highlighting the reliability of the spectral information obtained with IBIS. Furthermore, the very narrowband IBIS imaging reveals with much clarity the dual nature of the Ca II 854.2 nm line: its outer wings gradually sample the solar photosphere, while the core is a purely chromospheric indicator. The latter displays a wealth of fine structures including bright points, akin to the Ca II H2V and K2V grains, as well as fibrils originating from even the smallest magnetic elements. The fibrils occupy a large fraction of the observed field of view even in the quiet regions, and clearly outline atmospheric volumes with different dynamical properties, strongly dependent on the local magnetic topology. This highlights the fact that 1-D models stratified along the vertical direction can provide only a very limited representation of the actual chromospheric physics.
