Impact Spectropolarimetric Diagnostics of Nonthermal Phenomena in the Solar Atmosphere

Abstract

This chapter summarizes all known results on the impact spectropolarimetric sensing of chromospheric locations of a solar flare. These regions of the solar atmosphere are of the utmost importance for the clarification of energy transport modes from the corona, where primary energy release takes place, to the lower parts of the solar atmosphere. The upper layer of the chromosphere is an optically active region, where most emission lines are formed.⁽²⁰⁴⁾ It was shown in the previous chapters that spectropolarimetric data provide direct means for distinguishing the energy transfer mechanism from the corona to the chromosphere at a qualitative level.⁽⁵⁾ Moreover, by employing all the developed methods, this technique allows one to study diagnostics of the chromosphere plasma using quantitative observational data on the Stokes parameters of emission lines. Observational spectropolarimetric information about solar flares, mustaches, and other emissive objects such as degree of polarization, orientation of the polarization plane, spatial and temporal behavior of the frequency distribution of Stokes parameters along the emission line contour, are reviewed and analyzed in this chapter in more detail for the purpose of the practical implementation of impact spectropolarimetric sensing of different emissive objects in the solar atmosphere.