Stellar longitudinal magnetic field determination through multi-Zeeman signatures

TL;DR

This paper introduces a PCA-ZDI multi-line technique for accurately determining stellar longitudinal magnetic fields from polarized spectral lines, improving upon previous methods that relied on simplifying assumptions.

Contribution

The paper develops an inversion methodology for PCA-ZDI profiles, enabling precise magnetic field measurements using realistic spectral synthesis.

Findings

Successfully retrieves magnetic field strength and geometry from simulated data.

Accurately determines effective longitudinal magnetic fields across various stellar conditions.

Demonstrates robustness of PCA-ZDI in different magnetic and rotational scenarios.

Abstract

Context. A lot of effort has been put into the detection and determination of stellar magnetic fields using the spectral signal obtained from the combination of hundreds or thousands of individual lines, an approach known as multi-line techniques. However, so far most of multi-line techniques developed that retrieve stellar mean longitudinal magnetic fields recourse to sometimes heavy simplifications concerning line shapes and Zeeman splittings. Aims. To determine stellar longitudinal magnetic fields by means of the Principal Components Analysis and Zeeman Doppler Imaging (PCA-ZDI) multi-line technique, based on accurate polarised spectral line synthesis. Methods. In this paper we present the methodology to perform inversions of profiles obtained with PCA-ZDI. Results. Inversions with various magnetic geometries, field strengths and rotational velocities show that we can correctly determine the effective longitudinal magnetic field in stars using the PCA-ZDI method.