On the Magnetic Field Strength of Active Region Filaments

TL;DR

This study measures the magnetic field strength in an active region filament, finding strong transverse fields up to 600 G, which are the highest reliably measured in such structures, using spectropolarimetric data and multiple analysis methods.

Contribution

It provides the first consistent measurement of strong transverse magnetic fields in active region filaments using three different spectropolarimetric analysis techniques.

Findings

Magnetic fields in the filament are around 600-700 G.

Transverse fields dominate over longitudinal fields.

Strong transverse fields are present at photospheric levels.

Abstract

We study the vector magnetic field of a filament observed over a compact Active Region Neutral Line. Spectropolarimetric data acquired with TIP-II (VTT, Tenerife, Spain) of the 10830 \AA spectral region provide full Stokes vectors which were analyzed using three different methods: magnetograph analysis, Milne-Eddington inversions and PCA-based atomic polarization inversions. The inferred magnetic field strengths in the filament are of the order of 600 - 700 G by all these three methods. Longitudinal fields are found in the range of 100 - 200 G whereas the transverse components become dominant, with fields as large as 500 - 600 G. We find strong transverse fields near the Neutral Line also at photospheric levels. Our analysis indicates that strong (higher than 500 G, but below kG) transverse magnetic fields are present in Active Region filaments. This corresponds to the highest field strengths reliably measured in these structures. The profiles of the Helium 10830 \AA lines observed in this Active Region filament are dominated by the Zeeman effect.