Orientation of cometary dust and polarization observations of comets

Details Orientation of cometary dust and polarization observations of comets Orientation of cometary dust and polarization observations of comets

Jun 1976

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1976sva....19..758d&link_type=abstract

(Astronomicheskii Zhurnal, vol. 52, Nov.-Dec. 1975, p. 1268-1278.) Soviet Astronomy, vol. 19, no. 6, 1976, p. 758-764. Translat

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

2

Comets, Interplanetary Dust, Light Scattering, Polarized Light, Circular Polarization, Dielectrics, Metal Particles, Orientation, Solar Wind

Scientific paper

It is argued that the orientation of dust grains in the head of a comet may cause light scattered by the grains to be linearly polarized in the plane of scattering. Several orientation mechanisms are considered, including paramagnetic relaxation, gas streams, and solar radiation. Calculations are performed which indicate that irregularly shaped dust grains are oriented by scattered solar radiation and that local gas streams, cometary gas jets, and local magnetic-field nonuniformities are also important. It is shown that scattering by oriented dust grains may lead to circular polarization of the scattered radiation and that the magnitude of such polarization depends on whether the grains are metallic or dielectric.

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