Ambiguity Resolution of Multiple Height Magnetic Field Observations
Abstract
Typical inversions of polarized radiation and the Zeeman effect, used to infer the vector magnetic field in the photosphere or chromosphere, suffer from an inherent degeneracy in the direction of the transverse field. Many methods have been developed to treat this problem, but all must make some assumption or approximation which may not be valid. In some cases, this has led to conflicting physical interpretations of observed solar structures. One way to remove the need for the assumptions is to infer the magnetic field simultaneously at multiple heights. When line of sight variations in the vector field are available, one can use only the vanishing of the divergence of the magnetic field to resolve the ambiguity in the direction of the transverse field. We present examples of applying this technique to synthetic and observed data, and discuss how it can improve our understanding of solar magnetic structures.
This work was supported by NASA under contracts NNH09CE60C and NNH09CF22C.- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #220
- Pub Date:
- May 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AAS...22020609B