Solar Mn I 5432/5395 Åline formation explained

¹ Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, N. Ireland
² Astronomical Observatory, Volgina 7, 11050 Belgrade, Yugoslavia
³ Dept. of Phys., Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USA
⁴ Dept. of Phys. & Astron. and Center for Simulational Physics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
⁵ National Solar Observatory, NOAO (Operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA), under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.) , PO Box 26732, Tucson, AZ 85726, USA e-mail: jgd@star.arm.ac.uk; djc@star.arm.ac.uk; ishort@acc.fau.edu; yeti@hal.physast.uga.edu; wcl@noao.edu; ivince@aob.aob.bg.ac.yu

Corresponding author: J. G. Doyle, jgd@star.arm.ac.uk

Received: 17 January 2001
Accepted: 9 February 2001

Abstract

We present a solution for the long standing problem concerning the "chromospheric"behaviour of the Mn i 5395/5432 Ålines in the solar spectrum using multi-line/multi-species NLTE modelling. Using comprehensive spectral line formation modelling, we show that the Mn i lines are very sensitive to optical pumping in a transition which overlaps with Mg ii k. It therefore follows that one has to be careful with the choice of lines as temperature indicators and for the determination of the Mn abundances although on the other hand, due to the formation process of these lines they may be useful as a solar and stellar activity diagnostic.