Solar coronal magnetic field measurements using spectral lines available in Hinode/EIS observations: Strong and weak field techniques and temperature diagnostics

TL;DR

This study evaluates techniques for measuring the solar coronal magnetic field using spectral lines from Hinode/EIS, revealing underestimations in current methods and challenges in accurate temperature diagnostics for improved measurements.

Contribution

The paper assesses the accuracy of weak and strong magnetic field techniques and introduces methods for temperature diagnostics, highlighting limitations and the need for further improvements.

Findings

Both weak and strong field techniques underestimate magnetic strength.

Current temperature diagnostics are insufficient for precise magnetic field measurements.

Further research is needed for accurate coronal magnetic field diagnostics.

Abstract

Recently, it has been proposed that the magnetic-field-induced transition (MIT) in Fe X can be used to measure coronal magnetic field strengths. Several techniques, the direct line ratio technique and the weak and strong magnetic field techniques, are developed to apply the MIT theory to spectroscopic observations taken by EUV Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) onboard Hinode. However, the suitability of coronal magnetic field measurements based on the weak and strong magnetic field techniques has not been evaluated. Besides, temperature diagnostics is also important for measuring coronal magnetic field based on the MIT theory, but how to determine the accurate formation temperature of the Fe X lines from EIS observations still needs investigation. In this study, we synthesized emissions of several spectral lines from a 3D radiation magnetohydrodynamic model of a solar active region, and then derived magnetic field strengths using different methods. We first compared the magnetic field strengths derived from the weak and strong magnetic field techniques to the values in the model. Our study suggests that both weak and strong magnetic field techniques underestimate the coronal magnetic field strength. Then we developed two methods to calculate the formation temperature of the Fe X lines. One is based on differential emission measure analyses, and the other is deriving temperature from the Fe IX and Fe XI line pairs. However, neither of the two methods can provide temperature determination for accurate coronal magnetic field measurements as those derived from the Fe X 174/175 and 184/345 {\AA} line ratios. More efforts are still needed for accurate coronal magnetic field measurements using EIS observations.