Mechanical Alignment of Prolate Cosmic-Dust Grains: Cross Section Alignment

Details Mechanical Alignment of Prolate Cosmic-Dust Grains: Cross Section Alignment Mechanical Alignment of Prolate Cosmic-Dust Grains: Cross Section Alignment

Nov 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996apj...472..240l&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal v.472, p.240

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

18

Ism: Dust, Extinction, Ism: Magnetic Fields, Polarization

Scientific paper

This paper deals with the quantitative analysis of a recently introduced mechanism of mechanical alignment of suprathermally rotating cosmic-dust grains. These grains, whose rapid rotation is mostly due to H2 formation, are insensitive to stochastic torques arising from gas-grain collisions and can be aligned either by gaseous torques during short periods of crossovers or by the so-called cross section mechanism, arising from the variations in the rate at which atoms arrive at the grain surface. In our previous publication, it was shown that the cross section mechanism is efficient for oblate grains. In the present paper, we address alignment of prolate spheroidal dust grains, derive expressions for the measure of alignment for such grains, and study how this measure depends on the angle between the interstellar magnetic field and the gaseous flow, and on the grain eccentricity. Our comparison of the present results with those obtained in our earlier study shows that the efficiency of cross section alignment for oblate grains is approximately an order of magnitude higher than for prolate grains.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Mechanical Alignment of Prolate Cosmic-Dust Grains: Cross Section Alignment does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Mechanical Alignment of Prolate Cosmic-Dust Grains: Cross Section Alignment, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Mechanical Alignment of Prolate Cosmic-Dust Grains: Cross Section Alignment will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1146514