A first spectroscopic measurement of the magnetic field strength for an active region of the solar corona

Abstract

For all involved in astronomy, the importance of monitoring and determining astrophysical magnetic field strengths is clear. It is also a well-known fact that the corona magnetic fields play an important part in the origin of solar flares and the variations of space weather. However, after many years of solar corona studies, there is still no direct and continuous way to measure and monitor the solar magnetic field strength. We will here present a scheme which allows such a measurement, based on a careful study of an exotic class of atomic transitions known as magnetic induced transitions in Fe 9+ . In this contribution we present a first application of this methodology and determine a value of the coronal field strength using the spectroscopic data from HINODE.