Singular points of the polarization tensor

Abstract

The problem to compute the magnetic field above the chromosphere using data of the vector τ = B _t/Bt that gives the projected field direction can be solved with different approximations. The field of direction vectors τ is, however, not the only field accessible to observations. The Stokes parameters, which are components of the radiation tensor, can be measured at each point of the image plane. The directions of the eigenvectors of the radiation tensor define two mutually orthogonal systems of integral curves in the image plane. These families of curves have singular points, which are generally of different type than those of the vector field. When the morphology of Hα chromospheric fibrils are used to infer the topology of the magnetic field, a similar problem is met, suggesting that singular points should also be present there.