Inference of the chromospheric magnetic field orientation in the Ca II 8542 A line fibrils

TL;DR

This study uses a Bayesian model to analyze spectro-polarimetric images, demonstrating that chromospheric fibrils generally align with magnetic field azimuths but with notable dispersion, especially in less magnetized areas.

Contribution

It introduces a Bayesian hierarchical approach to quantify the alignment between fibrils and magnetic fields in the solar chromosphere.

Findings

Fibrils are often well aligned with magnetic field azimuths.

Dispersion in alignment varies from ~16° in penumbrae to ~34° in weaker fields.

The analysis confirms fibrils as proxies for magnetic field directions with some variability.

Abstract

Solar chromospheric fibrils, as observed in the core of strong chromospheric spectral lines, extend from photospheric field concentrations suggesting that they trace magnetic field lines. These images have been historically used as proxies of magnetic fields for many purposes. We use a Bayesian hierarchical model to analyze several tens of thousands of pixels in spectro-polarimetric chromospheric images of penumbrae and chromospheric fibrils. We compare the alignment between the field azimuth inferred from the linear polarization signals through the transverse Zeeman effect and the direction of the fibrils in the image. We conclude that, in the analyzed fields of view, fibrils are often well aligned with the magnetic field azimuth. Despite this alignment, the analysis also shows that there is a non-negligible dispersion. In penumbral filaments, we find a dispersion with a standard deviation of ~16 degrees, while this dispersion goes up to ~34 degrees in less magnetized regions.