CHROMOSPHERIC DIAGNOSIS WITH Ca II LINES: FORWARD MODELING IN FORWARD SCATTERING. I

Abstract

This paper shows the first synthetic tomography of the quiet solar chromosphere formed by spatial maps of scattering polarization. It has been calculated for the CaII 8498, 8542 and 3934 A lines by solving the NLTE (non-local thermodynamical equilibrium) RT (radiative transfer) problem of the second kind in a 3D atmosphere model obtained from realistic MHD (magneto-hydrodynamical) simulations. Maps of circular polarization were calculated neglecting atomic polarization. Our investigation focuses on the linear polarization signals induced by kinematics, radiation field anisotropy and Hanle effect in forward-scattering geometry. Thus, instead of considering slit profiles at the limb as normally done in the study of the second solar spectrum, we synthetize and analyze spatial maps of polarization at disk center. It allows us to understand the spatial signatures of dynamics and magnetic field in the linear polarization for discriminating them observationally. Our results suggest new ideas for chromospheric diagnosis that will be developed throughout a serie of papers. In particular, Hanle Polarity Inversion Lines and dynamic Hanle diagrams are two concepts introduced in the present work. We find that chromospheric dynamics and magnetic field topology create spatial fingerprints in the polarization maps that trace the dynamic situation of the plasma and the magnetic field. Based on such spatial features we reconstruct the magnetic field intensity in the middle chromosphere along grooves of null linear polarization. We finally address the problems of diagnosing Hanle saturation and kinematic amplification of scattering signals using Hanle diagrams.