Letter to the Editor

Detection of the mercapto radical SH in the solar atmosphere

¹ Astronomy Division, PO Box 3000, 90014 University of Oulu, Finland
² National Solar Observatory, AURA, PO Box 26732, Tucson, AZ 85726, USA

Corresponding author: S. V. Berdyugina, Sveta.Berdyugina@oulu.fi

Received: 15 February 2002
Accepted: 8 March 2002

Abstract

We analyze new high-resolution UV observations of the solar photosphere in the disk center and the limb and report the first detection of SH lines in the solar atmosphere. We perform a synthesis of the solar spectrum including many atomic and molecular lines and find a few relatively unblended SH lines from which we determine the (0, 0) band oscillator strength . We conclude that these lines are excellent indicators of the sulfur abundance and isotope ratio in G and K stars.