Related papers: Interstellar extinction and interstellar polarizat…
We extend and investigate the spheroidal model of interstellar dust grains used to simultaneously interpret the observed interstellar extinction and polarization curves. We compare our model with similar models recently suggested by other…
The wavelength dependences of interstellar extinction and polarization, supplemented by observed elemental abundances and the spectrum of infrared emission from dust heated by starlight, strongly constrain dust models. One dust model that…
Polarized extinction and emission from dust in the interstellar medium (ISM) are hard to interpret, as they have a complex dependence on dust optical properties, grain alignment and magnetic field orientation. This is particularly true in…
A composite dust grain model which simultaneously explains the observed interstellar extinction, polarization, IR emission and the abundance constraints, is required. We present a composite grain model, which is made up of a host silicate…
This article gives an overview of the constitution, physical conditions and observables of dust in the interstellar medium of nearby galaxies. We first review the macroscopic, spatial distribution of dust in these objects, and its…
This review describes our current understanding of interstellar extinction. This differ substantially from the ideas of the 20th century. With infrared surveys of hundreds of millions of stars over the entire sky, such as 2MASS,…
Observations of interstellar extinction and polarization indicate that the interstellar medium consists of aligned non-spherical dust grains which show variation in the interstellar extinction curve for wavelengths ranging from NIR to UV.…
This review surveys the observed properties of interstellar dust grains: the wavelength-dependent extinction of starlight, including absorption features, from UV to IR; optical luminescence; IR emission; microwave emission; optical, UV, and…
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…
Interstellar dust plays a central role in shaping the detailed structure of the interstellar medium, thus strongly influencing star formation and galaxy evolution. Dust extinction provides one of the main pillars of our understanding of…
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,…
Nine lectures reviewing the astrophysics of dust in interstellar clouds. Topics include: (1) Summary of observational evidence concerning interstellar dust: broadband extinction, scattering of starlight, polarization of starlight,…
This paper reviews our current understanding of interstellar dust models, what constitutes a viable dust model, what observational constraints are essential for deriving such model, and the current viable dust models. Interstellar dust…
Interstellar dust grains are often aligned. If the grain alignment direction varies along the line of sight, the thermal emission becomes circularly-polarized. In the diffuse interstellar medium, the circular polarization at far-infrared…
We present a synthesis of the astronomical observations constraining the wavelength-dependent extinction, emission, and polarization from interstellar dust from UV to microwave wavelengths on diffuse Galactic sightlines. Representative…
Calculations are performed for the linear polarization of starlight due to extinction by aligned dust grains when the starlight traverses a medium with irregular magnetic fields. This medium is intended to represent the optically thick…
The polarization of starlight and thermal dust emission, resulting from non-spherical grains aligned with the interstellar magnetic field (B-field), act as a powerful tool to trace the B-field morphologies and strengths in molecular clouds…
The past century of interstellar dust has brought us from first ignoring it to finding that it is an important component of the interstellar medium and plays an important role in the evolution of galaxies, the formation of stars and…
The new observational data on interstellar dust, obtained during the past few years, in particular, revised ISM elemental abundances, the polarization curve from the far UV to the near IR, spectra of dust infrared emission, extended red…
Distance estimates derived from spectroscopy or parallax have been unified by considering extinction by large grains. The addition of such a population of what is called Dark Dust to models of the diffuse interstellar medium is tested…