The Circular Polarization of Light Reflected by Aligned Dust Grains

Details The Circular Polarization of Light Reflected by Aligned Dust Grains The Circular Polarization of Light Reflected by Aligned Dust Grains

Jan 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21543109b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #431.09; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.363

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Circular polarization is an important, yet underestimated way to study magnetic fields and grain alignment. We study the degree of circular polarization of light reflected by aligned dust grains in both Zodiacal dust and the coma of a comet, specifically Comet C/1999 S4 (LINEAR). We calculate the circular polarization expected from the aligned Zodiacal dust and compare our predictions with the actual measurement of polarization. We conclude that the dust is aligned in a Zodiacal disk, which implies that its contribution should be accounted in the CMB polarization missions, e.g. in Planck. We show that varying the structure of magnetic field of the disk affects the spatial variations of the polarization arising from the disk. This provides a way of studying magnetic fields in the Zodiacal disk. In the comet coma, we assume that the alignment of dust happens in respect to electric field and obtain a good fit of the circular polarization for the Comet C/1999 S4 (LINEAR) data. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation's REU program and the Department of Defense's ASSURE program through NSF Award AST-0453442.

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