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| Paper: |
What Can We Learn About the Corona from Polarization Measurements? (Invited review) |
| Volume: |
205, The Last Total Solar Eclipse of the Millennium in Turkey |
| Page: |
41 |
| Authors: |
Stenflo, J. O. |
| Abstract: |
Polarization is produced by a variety of physical processes, including anisotropic excitation by radiation or particle beams, magnetic fields, and macroscopic electric fields. Many of the potential applications of polarimetry for the diagnostics of coronal physics still lie in the future, some even in the rather distant future. Magnetic-field measurements in the corona are notoriously difficult, both because of the low intensity and because the corona is optically thin. Stokes inversion of polarization maps to obtain magnetic-field maps are possible for evolving structures only if stereoscopic viewing is available. Without such capabilities polarization measurements in different portions of the spectrum are still of considerable diagnostic value to place constraints, although incomplete, on different aspects of coronal physics, which cannot be constrained by other means. |
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