Related papers: Polarization in caustic-crossing binary microlensi…
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…
In quasars which are lensed by galaxies, the point-like images sometimes show sharp and uncorrelated brightness variations (microlensing). These brightness changes are associated with the innermost region of the quasar passing through a…
Galactic dust emission is polarized at unexpectedly high levels, as revealed by Planck. The origin of the observed $\simeq 20\%$ polarization fractions can be identified by characterizing the properties of optical starlight polarization in…
We interpret the relation between the polarizing efficiency $P_{\max}/E(B-V)$ and the wavelength of the maximum polarization $\lambda_{\max}$ observed for 17 objects (including 243 stars) separated into two groups: "dark clouds" and "open…
The circular polarization of light that planets reflect is often neglected because it is very small compared to the linear polarization. It could, however, provide information on a planet's atmosphere and surface, and on the presence of…
For highly divergent emission of broad-area vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) a rotation of the polarization direction by up to 90 degrees occurs when the pump rate approaches the lasing threshold. Well below threshold the…
We study the microlensing of Non-Radially Pulsating (NRP) stars. Pulsations are formulated for stellar radius and temperature using spherical harmonic functions with different values of l,m. The characteristics of the microlensing light…
Z-sources are a particular class of neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries characterized by a wide Z-like track in their hard colorsoft color (or hardness-intensity) diagrams, with three branches: the horizontal (HB), the normal (NB), and the…
Primordial gravitational waves leave a characteristic imprint on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in the form of $B$-mode polarization. Photons are also deflected by large scale gravitational waves which intervene between the source…
We study the retrograde second caustics of extremal Kerr black holes, where the intensity of the light beam is infinitely magnified. We find that the caustics of different polarized beams are split by as much as $10^{-3}$rad by an external…
We investigate the origin of the large clustering signal detected in the angular distribution of the radio sources in the TGSS catalog. To do so, we cross-correlate the angular position of the radio sources with the Cosmic Microwave…
Interstellar linear polarization occurs when starlight passes through elongated dust grains aligned by interstellar magnetic fields. The observed polarization can come from different dust structures along the line of sight (LOS). By…
Tightly focused light beams can exhibit electric fields spinning around any axis including the one transverse to the beams' propagation direction. At certain focal positions, the corresponding local polarization ellipse can degenerate into…
This paper uses the caustic crossing events in the microlens data sets to explore the nature and location of the lenses. We conclude that the large majority of lenses, whether they are luminous or dark, are likely to be binaries. Further,…
Ionic crystals, such as solid electrolytes and complex oxides, are central to modern technologies for energy storage, sensing, actuation, and other functional applications. An important fundamental issue in the atomic and quantum-scale…
Massive star winds are complex radiation-hydrodynamic (sometimes magnetohydrodynamic) outflows that are propelled by their enormously strong luminosities. The winds are often found to be structured and variable, but can also display…
Multiply connected space sections of the universe on a scale smaller than the horizon size can leave an imprint on cosmic microwave background polarization maps, in such a way that the so-called ``circles-in-the-sky'' method can be used to…
It is shown that the linear approximation of the central caustic for the planetary ($q\ll1$) microlensing is valid if $|1-s|\gg q^{1/3}$ (where $q$ is the mass ratio and $s$ is the projected separation in the unit of the Einstein ring…
Polarization squeezing is shown to occur in non-degenerate parametric amplification of coherent light and the degree of squeezing at interaction time $T$ can be as large as $1-e^{-2T}$. This gives $86.4\%$ polarization squeezing for $T=1$…
Highly polarized components of pulse profiles are investigated by analyzing observational data and simulating the emission processes. The highly polarized components appear at the leading or trailing part of a pulse profile, which…