John E. Vaillancourt

The linear polarization of thermal dust emission provides a powerful tool to probe interstellar and circumstellar magnetic fields, because aspherical grains tend to align themselves with magnetic field lines. While the Radiative Alignment…

We present 450 {\mu}m polarimetric observations of the M17 molecular cloud obtained with the SHARP polarimeter at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. Across the observed region, the magnetic field orientation is consistent with previous…

We analyze the wavelength dependence of the far-infrared polarization fraction toward the OMC-1 star forming region using observations from HAWC+/SOFIA at 53, 89, 154, and 214 $\mu$m. We find that the shape of the far-infrared polarization…

Interstellar dust grain alignment causes polarization from UV to mm wavelengths, allowing the study of the geometry and strength of the magnetic field. Over last couple of decades observations and theory have led to the establishment of the…

The optical and near-infrared (OIR) polarization of starlight is typically understood to arise from the dichroic extinction of that light by dust grains whose axes are aligned with respect to a local magnetic-field. The size distribution of…

SOFIA HAWC+ polarimetry at $154~\micron$ is reported for the face-on galaxy M51 and the edge-on galaxy NGC 891. For M51, the polarization vectors generally follow the spiral pattern defined by the molecular gas distribution, the…

We present observations of linear polarization from dust thermal emission at 850 $\mu m$ towards the starless cloud L183. These data were obtained at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) using the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer…

We report new polarimetric and photometric maps of the massive star-forming region OMC-1 using the HAWC+ instrument on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). We present continuum polarimetric and photometric…

We expand on the dispersion analysis of polarimetry maps toward applications to interferometry data. We show how the filtering of low-spatial frequencies can be accounted for within the idealized Gaussian turbulence model, initially…

The alignment of interstellar dust grains with magnetic fields provides a key method for measuring the strength and morphology of the fields. In turn, this provides a means to study the role of magnetic fields from diffuse gas to dense…

We present {\lambda}1.3 mm CARMA observations of dust polarization toward 30 star-forming cores and 8 star-forming regions from the TADPOL survey. We show maps of all sources, and compare the ~2.5" resolution TADPOL maps with ~20"…

We present 350 micron polarization observations of four low-mass cores containing Class 0 protostars: L483, L1157, L1448-IRS2, and Serp-FIR1. This is the second paper in a larger survey aimed at testing magnetically regulated models for…

We present the first detection of polarization around the Class 0 low-mass protostar L1157-mm at two different wavelengths. We show polarimetric maps at large scales (10" resolution at 350 um) from the SHARC-II Polarimeter and at smaller…

We use previously published high-resolution synchrotron polarization data to perform an angular dispersion analysis with the aim of charactering magnetized turbulence in M51. We first analyze three distinct regions (the center of the…

The Hertz and SCUBA polarimeters, working at 350 micron and 850 micron respectively, have measured the polarized emission in scores of Galactic clouds. Of the clouds in each dataset, 17 were mapped by both instruments with good polarization…

We measured polarized dust emission at 350um towards the high-mass star forming massive dense clump IRAS 20126+4104 using the SHARC II Polarimeter, SHARP, at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. Most of the observed magnetic field vectors…

We apply our technique on the dispersion of magnetic fields in molecular clouds to high spatial resolution Submillimeter Array polarization data obtained for Orion KL in OMC-1, IRAS 16293, and NGC 1333 IRAS 4A. We show how one can take…

We investigate the effect of the Milky Way's magnetic field in star forming regions using archived 350 micron polarization data on 52 Galactic star formation regions from the Hertz polarimeter module. The polarization angles and percentages…

We expand our study on the dispersion of polarization angles in molecular clouds. We show how the effect of signal integration through the thickness of the cloud as well as across the area subtended by the telescope beam inherent to dust…

We present results of 1.3 mm dust polarization observations toward 16 nearby, low-mass protostars, mapped with ~2.5" resolution at CARMA. The results show that magnetic fields in protostellar cores on scales of ~1000 AU are not tightly…