Related papers: Interstellar extinction and interstellar polarizat…
Interstellar dust is a major foreground contaminant for many observations and a key component in the chemistry of the interstellar medium, yet its properties remain highly uncertain. Using low-resolution spectra, we accurately measure the…
Interstellar polarization at far-infrared through millimeter wavelengths (0.1 - 1 mm) is primarily due to thermal emission from dust grains aligned with magnetic fields. This mechanism has led to studies of magnetic fields in a variety of…
A quantitative interpretation of the observed relation between the interstellar linear polarization curve parameters $K$ and $\lambda_{\max}$ characterizing the width and the wavelength of a polarization maximum, respectively, is given. The…
Several of the current and next-generation cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments have polarimetric capability, promising to add to the finesse of precision cosmology. One of the contaminating Galactic foregrounds is thermal emission…
The standard interpretation of the extinction curve does not agree with some observations. The light we receive from a reddened star must be contaminated by starlight scattered at very small angular distances from the star. The true…
Polarized emission from aligned dust is a crucial tool for studies of magnetism in the ISM and a troublesome contaminant for studies of CMB polarization. In each case, an understanding of the significance of the polarization signal requires…
(abridged) The dust content of the universe is primarily explored via its interaction with stellar photons, producing interstellar extinction. However, owing to the physical extension of the observing beam, observations may detect scattered…
Dust polarisation observations at optical wavelengths help understand the dust grain properties and trace the plane-of-the-sky component of the magnetic field. In this study, we make use of published optical polarisation data acquired with…
In this paper I review a series of observations which do not agree with the standard interpretation of the extinction curve. The consequence is that light we receive from a reddened star must be contaminated by starlight scattered at very…
The polarization spectrum, or wavelength dependence of the polarization fraction, of interstellar dust emission provides important insights into the grain alignment mechanism of interstellar dust grains. We investigate the far-infrared…
How dust absorbs and scatters starlight as a function of wavelength (known as the interstellar extinction curve) is crucial for correcting for the effects of dust extinction in inferring the true luminosity and colors of reddened…
We present polarisation spectra of seven stars in the lines-of-sight towards the Sco OB1 association. Our spectra were obtained within the framework of the Large Interstellar Polarization Survey carried out with the FORS instrument of the…
The dust extinction curve is a critical component of many observational programs and an important diagnostic of the physics of the interstellar medium. Here we present new measurements of the dust extinction curve and its variation towards…
We study the extinction properties of the composite dust grains, consisting of host silicate spheroids and graphite as inclusions, using discrete dipole approximation (DDA). We calculate the extinction cross sections of the composite grains…
We are living in a dusty universe: dust is ubiquitously seen in a wide variety of astrophysical environments, ranging from circumstellar envelopes around cool red giants to supernova ejecta, from diffuse and dense interstellar clouds and…
The approach to model composite interstellar dust grains, using the exact solution to the light scattering problem for multi-layered spheres as suggested by Voshchinnikov & Mathis (1999), is further developed. Heterogeneous scatteres are…
The relationship between dust polarization and extinction was determined for the cold dense starless molecular cloud core FeSt 1-457 based on the background star polarimetry of dichroic extinction at near-infrared wavelengths. Owing to the…
Our current understanding of the absorption and emission properties of interstellar grains are reviewed. The constraints placed by the Kramers-Kronig relation on the wavelength-dependence and the maximum allowable quantity of the dust…
Dust is a key component of the Universe, especially regarding galaxies evolution, playing an essential role for both the physics and chemistry of the interstellar medium. In this paper, we give a brief review of interstellar dust. We…
While it is well recognized that both the Galactic interstellar extinction curves and the gas-phase abundances of dust-forming elements exhibit considerable variations from one sight line to another, as yet most of the dust extinction…