Partial Redistribution Effects on Polarized Lines Formed in Moving Media in the Presence of a Weak Magnetic Field

Abstract

AbstractMacroscopic velocity fields in stellar atmospheres significantly affect the shapes of the emergent Stokes profiles. The inextricable coupling between the angle and frequency variables becomes more complex in a moving medium when compared to a static medium. In this paper we consider both complete frequency redistribution (CRD) and partial frequency redistribution (PRD) in the line scattering of a two-level atom in the presence of an external weak magnetic field. For simplicity we consider empirical velocity laws to represent motion of the atmospheric layers. We present emergent Stokes profiles computed with CRD, angle-averaged PRD, and angle-dependent PRD. We show that angle-dependent PRD effects are important both in non-magnetic and magnetized scattering when vertical velocity gradients are present in the atmosphere. The results are presented for simple atmospheric models. They are expected to be of relevance to polarized line formation in slowly expanding chromospheric layers.