Gauß law for magnetism implies that the magnetic field must be solenoidal: ∇ B = 0. This is also known as Maxwell's second equation. Unfortunately, traditional Stokes inversion codes for solar spectropolarimetric data retrieve a magnetic field B that is non-solenoidal and thus in direct disagreement with one of the most important equations of classical electrodynamics. Researchers at KIS (J.M. Borrero) have led an international team, including Adur Pastor Yabar (Stockholm University, Sweden) and Basilio Ruiz Cobo (Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, Spain) in an effort to determine, for the very first time, a magnetic field on the solar atmosphere that is fully compatible with the solenoidal condition. This opens the possibility to dramatically increase the accuracy in the determination of the solar magnetic field. The new method has been implemented into the FIRTEZ inversion code and it is publicly available for the entire community to use through our gitlab page: gitlab.leibniz-kis.de/borrero/firtez-dz-mhs

The work has been accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics and is available in ArXiv: arxiv.org/abs/2404.02045