Spectropolarimetric multi line analysis of stellar magnetic fields

TL;DR

This paper evaluates two multi-line spectropolarimetric methods, pseudo-line and PCA-ZDI, for inferring stellar magnetic fields, demonstrating their effectiveness in extracting magnetic information from polarized spectra.

Contribution

It introduces and compares the pseudo-line and PCA-ZDI techniques for magnetic field inference, highlighting the advantages of PCA-ZDI in extracting polarization signatures.

Findings

Both methods can accurately infer the magnetic field vector.

The PCA-ZDI approach enhances signal detection through cross-correlation.

Multi-line techniques significantly improve signal-to-noise ratio.

Abstract

In this paper we study the feasibility of inferring the magnetic field from polarized multi-line spectra using two methods: The pseudo line approach and The PCA-ZDI approach. We use multi-line techniques, meaning that all the lines of a stellar spectrum contribute to obtain a polarization signature. The use of multiple lines dramatically increases the signal to noise ratio of these polarizations signatures. Using one technique, the pseudo-line approach, we construct the pseudo-line as the mean profile of all the individual lines. The other technique, the PCA-ZDI approach proposed recently by Semel et al. (2006) for the detection of polarized signals, combines Principle Components Analysis (PCA) and the Zeeman Do ppler Imaging technique (ZDI). This new method has a main advantage: the polarized signature is extracted using cross correlations between the stellar spectra nd functions containing the polarization properties of each line. These functions are the principal components of a database of synthetic spectra. The synthesis of the spectra of the database are obtained using the radiative transfer equations in LTE. The profiles built with the PCA-ZDI technique are denominated Multi-Zeeman-Signatures. The construction of the pseudo line as well as the Multi-Zeeman-Signatures is a powerful tool in the study of stellar and solar magnetic fields. The information of the physical parameters that governs the line formation is contained in the final polarized profiles. In particular, using inversion codes, we have shown that the magnetic field vector can be properly inferred with both approaches despite the magnetic field regime.