Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS
Volume 867, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aaeb34
Keywords
magnetic fields; polarization; scattering
Categories
Funding
- National Center for Atmospheric Research
- National Science Foundation
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We realized a laboratory experiment to study the scattering polarization of the Na I D-doublet at 589.0 and 589.6 nm in the presence of a magnetic field. This work was stimulated by solar observations of that doublet, which have proven particularly challenging to explain through available models of polarized line formation, even to the point of casting doubts on our very understanding of the underlying physics. The purpose of the experiment was to test a quantum theory for the polarized scattering of spectrally flat incident radiation, on which much of the current magnetic diagnostics of stellar atmospheres is based. The experiment has confirmed the predictions of that theory, and its adequacy for the modeling of scattering polarization under flat-spectrum illumination.
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