Abstract
Measurements of Faraday rotation through the solar corona were collected using the radio beacon aboard the MESSENGER spacecraft during the longest solar minimum in a century. As MESSENGER entered superior conjunction, the plane of polarization of its radio signal was observed to rotate as it traversed the circularly birefringent plasma of the Sun’s atmosphere. On time scales of less than three hours, these uncalibrated plane of polarization observations of Faraday rotation can be used to investigate the dynamic processes in the solar plasma, such as magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Here we describe the MESSENGER Faraday rotation experiment, the data processing conducted to obtain the plane of polarization, and the estimation of error.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Andy Buffington, Jose Chapela, John Clover, Richard Fallows, Bill Feldman, Ken’ichi Fujiki, P.K. Manoharan, Jean-Luc Margot, Ralph McNutt, Divya Oberoi, Karen O’Neil, Mark Perry, Christopher Russell, Paula Sharma, Dick Simpson, Sean Solomon, Munetoshi Tokumaru, the MESSENGER spacecraft team, and NRAO’s Green Bank Telescope team. This research was supported by MESSENGER Participating Scientist program and ACS Consulting, LLC.
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Observations and Modelling of the Inner Heliosphere
Guest Editors: Mario M. Bisi, Richard A. Harrison, and Noé Lugaz
A.R. Breen is deceased.
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Jensen, E.A., Bisi, M.M., Breen, A.R. et al. Measurements of Faraday Rotation Through the Solar Corona During the 2009 Solar Minimum with the MESSENGER Spacecraft. Sol Phys 285, 83–95 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-012-0213-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-012-0213-4