Polarization of continuum radiation in magnetic atmospheres

Abstract

A numerical solution is presented for the problem of continuum radiative transfer in a magnetoactive medium. The continuum opacities are calculated in the presence of a strong magnetic field (H = 10 MG) typical of magnetic white dwarfs. The LTE pure-absorption model is assumed for calculating the polarized radiation field emitted by a realistic model atmosphere in the plane-parallel approximation. The wavelength dependences of the linear and circular polarizations are calculated for both uniform and dipole field configurations