Related papers: Observing the Second Solar Spectrum at IRSOL
There is an ongoing debate about the origin and even the very existence of a high degree of linear polarization of some chromospheric spectral lines observed in solar flares. The standard explanation of these measurements is in terms of the…
We present SQUIDPOL, a low-cost, multi-channel optical imaging polarimeter that performs simultaneous linear polarization measurements using a rotating half-wave plate, a non-polarizing beam splitter, and four wire-grid filters. We show…
We present the first multi-epoch spectropolarimetry of a type II plateau supernova (SN II-P), with optical observations of SN 1999em on days 7, 40, 49, 159, and 163 after discovery. These data are used to probe the geometry of the…
A novel polarimeter based on the asymmetry in the spacial distribution of synchrotron radiation will make for a fine addition to the existing M{\o}ller and Compton polarimeters. The spin light polarimeter consists of a set of wiggler magnet…
We studied the polarised spectrum of the post-AGB binary system 89\,Herculis on the basis of data collected with the high resolution \emph{Catania Astrophysical Observatory Spectropolarimeter}, \emph{HArps-North POlarimeter} and…
A sample of 19 solar-type stars, probing masses between 0.6 and 1.4 solar mass and rotation periods between 3.4 and 43 days, was regularly observed using the NARVAL spectropolarimeter at Telescope Bernard Lyot (Pic du Midi, France) between…
Borexino has been running since May 2007 at the LNGS with the primary goal of detecting solar neutrinos. The detector, a large, unsegmented liquid scintillator calorimeter characterized by unprecedented low levels of intrinsic…
The Hanle effect has been proposed as a new diagnostic of circumstellar magnetic fields for early-type stars, for which it is sensitive to field strengths in the 1-300 G range. In this paper we compute the polarized P-Cygni line profiles…
The main goal of this thesis has been to investigate the effects that the macroscopic vertical velocity fields have on the scattering polarization signals formed in the solar chromosphere. Until now, the impact of macroscopic motions had…
Scattering line polarization and the Hanle effect are among the most important mechanisms for diagnostics of the solar and stellar atmospheres. The fact that real stellar atmospheres are horizontally inhomogeneous makes the spectral…
Although the spectral lines of hydrogen contain valuable information on the physical properties of a variety of astrophysical plasmas, including the upper solar chromosphere, relatively little is known about their scattering polarization…
We report on the detection of linear polarization of the forbidden [O i] 630.03 nm spectral line. The observations were carried out in the broader context of the determination of the solar oxygen abundance, an important problem in…
Analysis of the Hanle effect in solar molecular lines allows us to obtain empirical information on hidden, mixed-polarity magnetic fields at subresolution scales in the (granular) upflowing regions of the `quiet' solar photosphere. Here we…
The POLAR detector is a space based Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) polarimeter with a wide field of view, which covers almost half the sky. The instrument uses Compton scattering of gamma rays on a plastic scintillator hodoscope to measure the…
Photons preferentially Compton scatter perpendicular to the plane of polarisation. This property can be exploited to design instruments to measure the linear polarisation of hard X-rays ($\sim$10 - 100 keV). Photons may undergo two…
Many objects on the sky exhibit a centrosymmetric polarization pattern, particularly in cases involving single scattering around a central source. Utilizing a novel liquid crystal device (the ``theta cell'') that transforms the coordinate…
Evolved late-type stars are frequently identified as photometric and spectroscopic variables, such as Mira-type or semi-regular variable objects. These stars can also be polarimetrically variable, an indicator of non-spherical geometry for…
A sounding-rocket program called the Chromospheric Lyman-Alpha Spectro-Polarimeter (CLASP) is proposed to be launched in the summer of 2014. CLASP will observe the solar chromosphere in Ly-alpha (121.567 nm), aiming to detect the linear…
We investigated the radiative emission of different types of solar features in the spectral range of the Ca II K line. We analyzed full-disk 2k x 2k observations from the PSPT Precision Solar Photometric Telescope. The data were obtained by…
Spin-orbit interactions (SOI) are a set of sub-wavelength optical phenomenon in which spin and spatial degrees of freedom of light are intrinsically coupled. One of the unique example of SOI, spin-Hall effect of light (SHEL) has been an…