Effects of solar evolution on finite acquisition time of Fabry-Perot-Interferometers in high resolution solar physics

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the finite acquisition time of solar spectro-polarimetric measurements affects the accuracy of physical parameter inference, proposing a novel normalization method to reduce errors in high-resolution solar observations.

Contribution

It introduces a new normalization technique for spectral line profiles that significantly reduces measurement errors caused by finite acquisition times in solar physics.

Findings

Normalisation method reduces errors in velocity and magnetic field measurements.

Errors exceed sensitivity thresholds with classical line profile composition.

Spatial binning slightly decreases measurement errors without increasing acquisition time.

Abstract

The imaging spectro-polarimeter VTF (Visible Tunable Filter) will be operated at the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST). Due to its capability of resolving dynamic fine structure of smaller than 0.05'', the finite acquisition time of typically 11 s affects the measurement process and potentially causes errors in deduced physical parameters. We estimate those errors and investigate ways of minimising them. We mimic the solar surface using a magneto-hydrodynamic simulation with a spatially averaged vertical field strength of 200 G. We simulate the measurement process scanning through successive wavelength points with a temporal cadence of 1 s. We synthesise FeI 617.3 nm. Besides the classical composition of the line profile, we introduce a novel method in which the intensity in each wavelength point is normalised using the simultaneous continuum intensity. Milne-Eddington inversions are used to infer the line-of-sight velocity, v(los), and the vertical (longitudinal) component of the magnetic field, B(los). We quantify systematic errors, defining the temporal average of the simulation during the measurement as the truth. We find that with the classical composition of the line profiles, errors exceed the sensitivity for v(los) and in filigree regions also for B(los). The novel method that includes normalisation reduces the measurement errors in all cases. Spatial binning without reducing the acquisition time decreases the measurement error slightly. The evolutionary time-scale in inter-granular lanes, in particular in areas with magnetic features (filigree), is shorter than the time-scale within granules. Hence less accumulations could be used for strong magnetic field in inter-granular lanes and more accumulations could be used for the weak granular magnetic fields. As a key result, we suggest to include the novel method of normalisation in corresponding data pipelines.