Bibcode
Casini, R.; Asensio-Ramos, A.; Lites, B. W.; López Ariste, A.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 773, Issue 2, article id. 180, 11 pp. (2013).
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8
2013
Journal
Citations
8
Refereed citations
6
Description
We describe a simple technique for the acceleration of
spectro-polarimetric inversions based on principal component analysis
(PCA) of Stokes profiles. This technique involves the indexing of the
database models based on the sign of the projections (PCA coefficients)
of the first few relevant orders of principal components of the four
Stokes parameters. In this way, each model in the database can be
attributed a distinctive binary number of 24n bits, where n
is the number of PCA orders used for the indexing. Each of these binary
numbers (indices) identifies a group of "compatible" models for the
inversion of a given set of observed Stokes profiles sharing the same
index. The complete set of the binary numbers so constructed evidently
determines a partition of the database. The search of the database for
the PCA inversion of spectro-polarimetric data can profit greatly from
this indexing. In practical cases it becomes possible to approach the
ideal acceleration factor of 24n as compared to the
systematic search of a non-indexed database for a traditional PCA
inversion. This indexing method relies on the existence of a physical
meaning in the sign of the PCA coefficients of a model. For this reason,
the presence of model ambiguities and of spectro-polarimetric noise in
the observations limits in practice the number n of relevant PCA orders
that can be used for the indexing.
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