Related papers: Study of grain alignment efficiency and a distance…
Optical and infrared continuum polarization from the interstellar medium is driven by radiative processes aligning the grains with the magnetic field. While a quantitative, predictive theory of Radiative Alignment Torques (RAT) exists and…
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…
Distance measurements to molecular clouds are essential and important. We present directly measured distances to 169 molecular clouds in the fourth quadrant of the Milky Way. Based on the near-infrared photometry from the Two Micron All Sky…
The optical and near-infrared (OIR) polarization of starlight is typically understood to arise from the dichroic extinction of that light by dust grains whose axes are aligned with respect to a local magnetic-field. The size distribution of…
Interstellar polarization from aligned dust grains can be measured both in transmission at visible and near-infrared wavelengths and in emission at far-infrared and sub-mm wavelengths. These observations can help predict the behavior of…
We present optical and near-infrared stellar polarization observations toward the dark filamentary clouds associated with IC5146. The data allow us to investigate the dust properties (this paper) and the magnetic field structure (Paper II).…
We report the discovery of small, isolated dust clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which are excellent candidates for counterparts to the Bok globules observed in the Galaxy. We detect these small clouds silhoutted against diffuse…
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…
Thanks to their well-defined shape and mostly isolated locations, Bok globules are suitable objects for studying the physics of low-mass star formation. To study the magnetic field of the prototypical Bok globule B335, we obtained a…
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…
We describe a near-infrared imaging survey of Globule 2 in the Coalsack. This Bok globule is the highest density region of this southern hemisphere molecular cloud and is the most likely location for young stars in this complex. The survey…
We present recent polarimetric images of the highly variable star R CrB using ExPo and archival WFPC2 images from the HST. We observed R CrB during its current dramatic minimum where it decreased more than 9 mag due to the formation of an…
We study alignment of grains by radiative torques. We found steep rise of radiative torque efficiency as grain size increases. This allows larger grains that are known to exist within molecular clouds to be aligned by the attenuated and…
We present near infrared polarimetry data of background stars shining through a selection of starless cores taken in the $K$ band, probing visual extinctions up to $A_{V} \sim 48$. We find that $P_K/{\tau _K}$ continues to decline with…
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,…
Aligned interstellar grains produce polarized extinction (observed at wavelengths from the far-ultraviolet to the mid-infrared), and polarized thermal emission (observed at far-infrared and submm wavelengths). The grains must be quite…
Recent photometric and polarimetric observations of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) show unusually low total-to-selective extinction ratio ($R_{V}<2$) and wavelength of maximum polarization ($\lambda_{max}<0.4\mu m$) for several SNe Ia, which…
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…
Grain alignment theory has reached the stage where quantitative predictions of the degree of alignment and its variations with optical depth are possible. With the goal of studying the effect of clumpiness on the sub-millimeter and far…
We present a catalog of dust clouds at high Galactic latitude based on the Planck 857 GHz dust emission data. Using a clustering hierarchical algorithm, 315 dust cloud at high Galactic latitudes are identified. Additionally, using the…