A Monte Carlo Model of Radiative Transfer Including Linear and Circular Polarization

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

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Scientific paper

A Monte Carlo model of radiative transfer through a spherical shell of dust with an optional solid nucleus in its center has been developed. This model calculates the four of the Stokes parameters of the light outgoing the shell and those of the incoming light onto the nucleus. Hence, not only the flux, but also the degree of both linear and circular polarization can be computed. The model may represent a comet but also any sort of interplanetary or interstellar dust cloud. As the scattering matrix of the dust cloud is an input, properties of the light scattered by any kind of dust particles can be computed, including aligned particles, asymmetrical grains and scatterers made of optically active materials, which have been historically proposed as possible explanations of the degree of circular polarization observed in light scattered by comets. Any optical thickness of the dust shell can be considered, because this method works for both single and multiple scattering conditions. We will describe the model in detail and present a collection of benchmarks in order to validate the assumed hypothesizes and the reliability of the code. We will also present some results on circular polarization of a comet-like system (spherical shell with a kilometer-sized nucleus in its core). These results indicate that circular polarization can arise even for light scattered by a spherical comet with a coma made of spherical and optically inactive grains, if the symmetry of the system around the direction of the incident light is broken by observing just a small non central region of the comet, but not the entire cloud.

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