POLARIZED LIGHT SCATTERING WITH THE PASCHEN-BACK EFFECT, LEVEL-CROSSING OF FINE STRUCTURE STATES, AND PARTIAL FREQUENCY REDISTRIBUTION

Abstract

The quantum interference between the fine structure states of an atom modifies the shapes of the emergent Stokes profiles in the Second Solar Spectrum. This phenomenon has been studied in great detail both in the presence and absence of magnetic fields. By assuming a flat-spectrum for the incident radiation, the signatures of this effect have been explored for arbitrary field strengths. Even though the theory which takes into account the frequency dependence of the incident radiation is well developed, it is restricted to the regime in which the magnetic splitting is much smaller than the fine structure splitting. In the present paper, we carry out a generalization of our scattering matrix formalism including the effects of partial frequency redistribution (PRD) for arbitrary magnetic fields. We test the formalism using available benchmarks for special cases. In particular we apply it to the Li\,{\sc i} 6708\,\AA\ D$_1$ and D$_2$ line system, for which observable effects from the Paschen-Back regime are expected in the Sun's spectrum.