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[117.01] Polarization induced by atomic alignment as a magnetic diagnostic

H. Yan, A. Lazarian, K. Nordsieck (U. Wisconsin)

Atomic alignment carries information about magnetic field direction in the circumstellar regions. Our work is concentrated in obtaining quantitative description of the sodium and NV (nitrogen five) alignment. We have performed calculations of the transition probabilities from the ground states of the hyperfine stucture of the ground state due to resonance scattering of directional photon flux. We obtained the distribution of the hyperfine structure occupation of the ground state. We took into account magnetic field by making averaging over Larmor precession. Due to this effect the resulting polarization gets dependant on magnetic field direction. This work is intended to make NV a reliable new diagnostics of magnetic fields.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: yan@astro.wisc.edu

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.