MULTILAYER SPECTRAL INVERSION OF SOLAR Hα AND CA II 8542 LINE SPECTRA WITH HEIGHT-VARYING ABSORPTION PROFILES

We present an updated version of the multilayer spectral inversion (MLSI) recently proposed as a technique to infer the physical parameters of plasmas in the solar chromosphere from a strong absorption line. In the original MLSI, the absorption profile was constant over each layer of the chromosphere, whereas the source function was allowed to vary with optical depth. In our updated MLSI, the absorption profile is allowed to vary with optical depth in each layer and kept continuous at the interface of two adjacent layers. We also propose a new set of physical requirements for the parameters useful in the constrained model fitting. We apply this updated MLSI to two sets of Hα and Ca II line spectral data taken by the Fast Imaging Solar Spectrograph (FISS) from a quiet region and an active region, respectively. We find that the new version of the MLSI satisfactorily fits most of the observed line profiles of various features, including a network feature, an internetwork feature, a mottle feature in a quiet region, and a plage feature, a superpenumbral fibril, an umbral feature, and a fast downflow feature in an active region. The MLSI can also yield physically reasonable estimates of hydrogen temperature and nonthermal speed as well as Doppler velocities at different atmospheric levels. We conclude that the MLSI is a very useful tool to analyze the Hα line and the Ca II 8542 line spectral daya, and will promote the investigation of physical processes occurring in the solar photosphere and chromosphere.