Related papers: A refined model for spinning dust radiation
The charge on an aggregate immersed in a plasma environment distributes itself over the aggregate's surface; this can be approximated theoretically by assuming a multipole distribution. The dipole-dipole (or higher order) charge…
Aligned grains present a foreground for cosmic microwave emission studies. We review basic physical processes involved in grain alignment and discuss the niches for different alignment mechanisms. We show that mechanisms which were favored…
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…
Radiative torques on irregular dust grains, in addition to producing superthermal rotation, play a direct dynamical role in the alignment of interstellar dust with the local magnetic field. The equations governing the orientation of…
Charging of dust grains in low-pressure plasmas is reviewed critically. A theory based on the Fokker-Planck equation and orbital motion limited approximation is proposed. The theory predicts that dust grains can acquire a positive charge in…
Aligned non-spherical dust particles polarize starlight passing through the dust cloud. They also emit polarized far infrared and sub-mm radiation. Substantial progress in understanding of grain alignment theory makes the interpretation of…
We present a model for the diffuse interstellar dust that explains the observed wavelength-dependence of extinction, emission, linear and circular polarisation of light. The model is set-up with a small number of parameters. It consists of…
Thermal fluctuations in the magnetization of interstellar grains will produce magnetic dipole emission at frequencies below ~100 GHz. We show how to calculate absorption and emission from small particles composed of magnetic materials. The…
In this analysis we illustrate how the relatively new emission mechanism known as spinning dust can be used to characterize dust grains in the interstellar medium. We demonstrate this by using spinning dust emission observations to…
(Sub-)Millimeter observations of the polarized emission of aligned aspherical dust grains enable us to study the magnetic fields within protoplanetary disk. However, the interpretation of these observations is complex. One must consider the…
We present SKIRT (Stellar Kinematics Including Radiative Transfer), a new Monte Carlo radiative transfer code that allows the calculation of the observed stellar kinematics of a dusty galaxy. The code incorporates the effects of both…
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…
Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the alignment of grains with the interstellar magnetic field, including paramagnetic dissipation, radiative torques, and supersonic gas-grain streaming. These must compete with disaligning…
We discuss the dynamics of dust grains subjected to uncompensated torques arising from H_2 formation. In particular, we discuss grain dynamics when a grain spins down and goes through a ``crossover''. As first pointed out by Spitzer &…
Dust in the diffuse interstellar medium remains incompletely understood with regard to the structure, composition, size distribution, and alignment properties of the grains. Joint observations of reddening, starlight polarisation spectra,…
We recently questioned the treatment of a dust particle as a perfect absorber for electrons and ions and proposed a surface model for the charge of a dust particle in a quiescent plasma which combines the microscopic physics at the grain…
Polarized microwave emission from dust is an important foreground that may contaminate polarized CMB studies unless carefully accounted for. We discuss potential difficulties associated with this foreground, namely, the existence of…
Polarization of optical starlight and far-infrared thermal dust emission due to alignment of interstellar grains offers a powerful window to study magnetic fields in the various astrophysical environments, from the diffuse interstellar…
Polarization carries information about the magnetic fields in interstellar clouds. The observations of polarized dust emission are used to study the role of magnetic fields in the evolution of molecular clouds and the initial phases of…
Polarization of starlight and thermal dust emission caused by aligned dust grains is a valuable tool to characterize magnetic fields (B-fields) and constrain dust properties. However, the physics of grain alignment is not fully understood.…