Related papers: The Thomson Surface. II. Polarization
The basis for the application of Thomson scattering to the analysis of coronagraph images has been laid decades ago.Even though the basic formulation is undebated, a discussion has grown in recent years about the spatial distribution of…
Thomson scattered photospheric light is the dominant constituent of the lower solar corona's spectral continuum viewed off-limb at optical wavelengths. Known as the K-corona, it is also linearly polarized. We investigate the possibility of…
The ratio of radially to tangentially polarized Thomson-scattered white light provides a powerful tool for locating the 3D position of compact structures in the solar corona and inner heliosphere, and the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and…
The direction angle of twilight sky background polarization in the celestial sphere points far from solar vertical is found to depend on the ratio of single and multiple scattering contributions. The polarization direction behavior during…
Linear polarized light has been used to view the solar corona for over 150 years. While the familiar Stokes representation for polarimetry is complete, it is best matched to a laboratory setting and therefore is not the most convenient…
We present a pedagogical and phenomenological introduction to the study of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization to build intuition about the prospects and challenges facing its detection. Thomson scattering of temperature…
The discrepancy between polarized and unpolarized measurements of the proton's electromagnetic form factors is striking, and suggests that two-photon exchange (TPE) may be playing a larger role in elastic electron-proton scattering than is…
Thomson scattering of intense laser pulses from relativistic electrons allows us to generate high-brightness and tunable-polarization X/{\gamma}-ray pulses. This paper demonstrates the polarization control of the Thomson scattering source…
Stereoscopic white-light imaging of a large portion of the inner heliosphere has been used to track interplanetary coronal mass ejections. At large elongations from the Sun, the white-light brightness depends on both the local electron…
Some bright cD galaxies in cluster cooling flows have Thomson optical depths exceeding 0.01. A few percent of their luminosity is scattered and appears as diffuse polarized emission. We calculate the scattering process for different…
Visible-light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols within the boundary layer affect the radiance and polarization states of the radiation at the top of the atmosphere. Remote sensing from suborbital and satellite-based platforms utilizes these…
[Abridged] The polarization of the CMB is widely recognized as a potential source of information about primordial gravitational waves. The gravitational wave contribution can be separated from the dominant CMB polarization created by…
Scattering of anisotropic radiation by atoms, ions or molecules is sufficient to generate linear polarization observable in stars and planets atmospheres, circumstellar environments, and in particular in the Sun's atmosphere. This kind of…
Photons preferentially Compton scatter perpendicular to the plane of polarisation. This property can be exploited to design instruments to measure the linear polarisation of hard X-rays ($\sim$10 - 100 keV). Photons may undergo two…
This paper aims to study the polarization of hard X-ray (HXR) sources in the solar atmosphere, including Compton backscattering of photons in the photosphere (the albedo effect) and the spatial distribution of polarization across the…
The surfaces of neutron stars are likely sources of strongly polarized soft X rays due to the presence of strong magnetic fields. Scattering transport in the surface layers is critical to the determination of the emergent anisotropy of…
The traditional Thomson scattering diagnostic is based on measurement of the wavelength spectrum of scattered light, where electron temperature measurements are inferred from thermal broadening of the scattered laser light. At sufficiently…
Scattering processes in the atmospheres of planets cause characteristic features that can be particularly well observed in polarisation. For planet Earth, both molecular and scattering by small particles imprint specific signatures in its…
The polarization of gamma ray emission scattered off the baryon rich material that collimates a GRB fireball and the coasting speed of the irradiated matter are calculated numerically for different geometries of the radiation source and the…
We describe observations of the white-light structures in the low corona following the X8.2 flare SOL2017-09-10, as observed in full Stokes parameters by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) of the Solar Dynamics Observatory. These…