High-resolution continuum polarization measurements in the near-infrared to submillimeter wavelength range

Abstract

We present high-resolution polarization maps, obtained with near-infrared instruments such as ISAAC at the VLT, SOFI at the NTT, and SCUBA at the JCMT. While we use the near-infrared polarization maps to determine the structure of the optical reflection nebula Cederblad 110 IRS 4 and to investigate the alignment of circumstellar disks around T Tauri binary stars, submillimeter polarization maps are used to derive the magnetic field structure and strength in Bok globules. Furthermore we show that near-infrared polarimetry represents a powerful tool to distinguish between different polarization models developed for active galactic nuclei.

Additional Information

© 2003 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). This research was supported by the DFG grant Ste 605/10 within the program "Physics of star formation", the travel grant He1935/19-1 of the DFG, through NASA grant NAG5-11645, and through the grant DP.10633 (project 101555). R. Launhardt acknowledges financial support through NFS grant AST 9981546. JCMT is operated by the Joint Astronomy Centre on behalf of the U.K. Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council. The presented near-infrared polarimetric data (Sect. 1, 3, and 4) have been obtained at the New Technology Telescope and the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the 3.5m telescope of the Calar Alto Observatory (Spain).

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