Related papers: Physics of Grain Alignment
Paramagnetic alignment of fractal suprathermally rotating grains is discussed. It is shown that if the concentration of H$_{2}$formation sites is low and resurfacing is active, fractal structure of grains enhances their alignment. Studying…
A detailed study of interstellar polarization efficiency toward molecular clouds is used to attempt discrimination between grain alignment mechanisms in dense regions of the ISM. Background field stars are used to probe polarization…
We present extensive calculations on the efficiency of grain alignment by the Davis-Greenstein mechanism. We model the grains as oblate spheroids with arbitrary axis ratios. Our description of the grain dynamics includes (i) magnetic…
We reveal a deep connection between alignment of dust grains by RAdiative torques (RATs) and MEchanical Torques (METs) and rotational disruption of grains introduced by Hoang et al. (2019). The disruption of grains happens if they have…
Shear induced alignment of elongated particles is studied experimentally and numerically. We show that shear alignment of ensembles of macroscopic particles is comparable even on a quantitative level to simple molecular systems, despite the…
The polarization of starlight and thermal dust emission from aligned non-spherical grains provides a powerful tool for tracing magnetic field morphologies and strengths in diffuse interstellar medium to star-forming regions, and…
In established theories of grain coarsening, grains disappear either by shrinking or by rotating as a rigid object to coalesce with an adjacent grain. Here we report a third mechanism for grain coarsening, in which a grain splits apart into…
Granular materials are involved in most industrial and environmental processes, as well as many civil engineering applications. Although significant advances have been made in understanding the statics and dynamics of cohesionless grains…
The polarization of starlight and thermal dust emission, resulting from non-spherical grains aligned with the interstellar magnetic field (B-field), act as a powerful tool to trace the B-field morphologies and strengths in molecular clouds…
We consider a model of the dynamics of a magnetic grain, incorporating interactions with nuclear and paramagnetic spins, conduction electrons, and phonons. Decoherence comes both from the spins and the electrons, although electron effects…
Observational studies of magnetic fields are vital as magnetic fields play a crucial role in various astrophysical processes, including star formation, accretion of matter, transport processes (e.g., transport of heat), and cosmic rays. We…
Since the classical work by Purcell (1979) it has been generally accepted that most interstellar grains rotate suprathermally. Suprathermally rotating grains would be nearly perfectly aligned with the magnetic field by paramagnetic…
Our understanding of the nature of interstellar grains has evolved considerably over the past half century with the present author and Fred Hoyle being intimately involved at several key stages of progress. The currently fashionable…
Interstellar dust grains exhibit complex dynamics which is essential for understanding many key interstellar processes that involve dust, including grain alignment, grain growth, grain shattering etc. Grain rotational and translational…
It has been first proved the effect of grains merging during drawing deformation. This was done with example of producing a steel wire from rod manufactured by rolling with shear technology and was shown not only grain refinement but its…
We show that the energy-level splitting arising from grain rotation ensures that paramagnetic dissipation acts at its maximum rate, i.e., the conditions for paramagnetic resonance are automatically fulfilled. We refer to this process as…
Multiscale phenomena which include several processes occuring simultaneously at different length scales and exchanging energy with each other, are widespread in magnetism. These phenomena often govern the magnetization reversal dynamics,…
We investigate the combined effect of solar wind, Poynting-Robertson drag, and the frozen-in interplanetary magnetic field on the motion of charged dust grains in our solar system. For this reason we derive a secular theory of motion by the…
We discuss a new technique of studying magnetic fields in diffuse astrophysical media, e.g. interstellar and intergalactic gas/plasma. This technique is based on the angular momentum alignment of atoms and ions in their ground or metastable…
Recent (sub)millimeter polarization observations of protoplanetary disks reveal toroidally aligned, effectively prolate dust grains large enough (at least ~100 $\mu$m) to efficiently scatter millimeter light. The alignment mechanism for…