  Advanced inversions of high-resolution spectropolarimetric observations of
the He I triplet at 1083 nm are used to generate unique maps of the
chromospheric magnetic field vector across a sunspot and its superpenumbral
canopy. The observations were acquired by the Facility Infrared
Spectropolarimeter (FIRS) at the Dunn Solar Telescope (DST) on 29 January 2012.
Multiple atmospheric models are employed in the inversions, as superpenumbral
Stokes profiles are dominated by atomic-level polarization while sunspot
profiles are Zeeman-dominated but also exhibit signatures perhaps induced by
symmetry breaking effects of the radiation field incident on the chromospheric
material. We derive the equilibrium magnetic structure of a sunspot in the
chromosphere, and further show that the superpenumbral magnetic field does not
appear finely structured, unlike the observed intensity structure. This
suggests fibrils are not concentrations of magnetic flux but rather
distinguished by individualized thermalization. We also directly compare our
inverted values with a current-free extrapolation of the chromospheric field.
With improved measurements in the future, the average shear angle between the
inferred magnetic field and the potential field may offer a means to quantify
the non-potentiality of the chromospheric magnetic field to study the onset of
explosive solar phenomena.
