Related papers: Torques on Spheroidal Silicate Grains Exposed to A…
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…
The degree to which interstellar grains align with respect to the interstellar magnetic field depends on disaligning as well as aligning mechanisms. For decades, it was assumed that disalignment was due primarily to the random angular…
While the problem of grain alignment was posed more than 60 years ago the quantitative model of grain alignment that can account for the observed polarization arising from aligned grains has been formulated only recently. The quantitative…
Polarization arising from aligned dust grains presents a unique opportunity to study magnetic fields in the diffuse interstellar medium and molecular clouds. Polarization from circumstellar regions, accretion disks and comet atmospheres can…
Interstellar grain alignment studies are currently experiencing a renaissance due to the development of a new quantitative theory based on Radiative Alignment Torques (RAT). One of the distinguishing predictions of this theory is a…
Polarized emission from interstellar dust grains is commonly used to infer information about the underlying magnetic field from the diffuse interstellar medium to molecular cloud cores. Therefore, the ability to accurately determine…
This paper provides a quantitative account of a recently introduced mechanism of mechanical alignment of suprathermally rotating grains. These rapidly rotating grains are essentially not susceptible to random torques arising from gas-grain…
Interstellar dust grains exhibit complex dynamics which is essential for understanding many key interstellar processes that involve dust, including grain alignment, grain growth, grain shattering etc. Grain rotational and translational…
We investigate the claim that the ratio {\beta} of radiation pressure force to gravitational force on a dust grain in our solar system can substantially exceed unity for some grain sizes, provided that grain porosity is high enough. For…
The radiative torque (RAT) mechanism is the most promising way of explaining observed polarization arising from aligned grains. We explore the efficiency of the grain alignment by an anisotropic radiation flow for an extensive ensemble of…
Aligned grains provide one of the easiest ways to study magnetic fields in diffuse gas and molecular clouds. How reliable our conclusions about the inferred magnetic field depends critically on our understanding of the physics of grain…
Stars are not smooth. Their photosphere is covered by a granulation pattern associated with the heat transport by convection. The convection-related surface structures have different size, depth, and temporal variations with respect to the…
Grain surfaces play a central role in the formation and desorption of molecules in space. To form molecules on a grain surface, adsorbed species trapped in binding sites must be mobile and migrate to adjacent sites. Thermal hopping is a…
Presolar grains are stardust particles that condensed in the ejecta or in the outflows of dying stars and can today be extracted from meteorites. They recorded the nucleosynthetic fingerprint of their parent stars and thus serve as valuable…
The nonlinear interaction of ultrasonic waves with a nonspherical particle may give rise to the acoustic radiation torque on the particle. This phenomenon is investigated here considering a rigid prolate spheroidal particle of subwavelength…
Alignment of dust grains in astrophysical environments results in the polarization of starlight as well as the polarization of radiation emitted by dust. We demonstrate the advances in grain alignment theory allow the use of linear and…
We study the physical processes that affect the alignment of grains subject to radiative torques (RATs). To describe the action of RATs, we use the analytical model (AMO) of RATs introduced in Paper I. We focus our discussion on the…
It is widely believed that water and complex organic molecules (COMs) first form in the ice mantle of dust grains and are subsequently returned into the gas due to grain heating by intense radiation of protostars. Previous research on the…
Scattering and absorption of X-rays by interstellar dust is calculated for a model consisting of carbonaceous grains and amorphous silicate grains. The calculations employ realistic dielectric functions with structure near X-ray absorption…
We apply the theory of radiative torque (RAT) alignment for studying protoplanetary disks around a T-Tauri star and perform 3D radiative transfer calculations to provide the expected maps of polarized radiation to be compared with…