Related papers: Ultraviolet Spectropolarimetry with Polstar: Inter…
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…
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…
One objective of the Polstar spectropolarimetry mission is to characterize the degree of nonconservative mass transfer that occurs at various stages of binary evolution, from the initial mass reversal to the late Algol phase. The proposed…
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…
The Polstar mission will provide for a space-borne 60cm telescope operating at UV wavelengths with spectropolarimetric capability capturing all four Stokes parameters (intensity, two linear polarization components, and circular…
Observations of far-infrared (FIR) and submillimeter (SMM) polarized emission are used to study magnetic fields and dust grains in dense regions of the interstellar medium (ISM). These observations place constraints on models of molecular…
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…
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…
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…
We present a novel method to measure the strength of interstellar magnetic fields based on ultraviolet (UV) polarization of starlight, which is in part produced by weakly aligned, small interstellar grains. We begin with calculating degrees…
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,…
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…
Context. Anomalous microwave emission (AME) is a component of interstellar medium emission peaking at 10-60 GHz. Its polarization is both a CMB foreground and a probe of the alignment physics of very small dust grains. Aims. We quantify…
We aim to investigate the polarization properties of a starless core in a very early evolutionary stage. Linear polarization data reveal the properties of the dust grains in the distinct phases of the interstellar medium. Our goal is to…
Interstellar polarization in the optical/infrared has long been known to be due to asymmetrical dust grains aligned with the magnetic field and can potentially provide a resource effective way to probe both the topology and strength of the…
We analyze low resolution Spitzer infrared (IR) 5-14 micron spectra of the diffuse emission toward a carefully selected sample of stars. The sample is composed of sight lines toward stars that have well determined ultraviolet (UV)…
Polstar is a proposed NASA MIDEX mission that would feature a high resolution UV spectropolarimeter capable of measure all four Stokes parameters onboard a 60cm telescope. The mission would pioneer the field of time-domain UV…
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…
The Polarimetry in the Ultraviolet to Find Features in INterStellar dust (PUFFINS) is a SmallSat mission concept designed to obtain ultraviolet (UV) spectropolarimetric observations to probe the interstellar dust grain properties and to…
We present a statistical analysis of the interstellar medium (ISM) polarization from the largest compilation available of starlight data, which comprises ~ 5500 stars. The measured correlation between the mean polarization degree and…