Abstract
An optical linear-polarization survey testing the relationships between polarization and other properties of QSOs is presented. Polarimetric observations of 239 QSOs have been made. Data from the literature are used to analyze the relationships between polarization and radio, optical, and X-ray properties. The highly polarized QSOs are generally compact radio sources, are associated with radio properties such as low-frequency variability and superluminal motion, exhibit large-amplitude rapid photometric variability, have steep nonthermal optical continua, and may show excess X-ray emission. No relationship is seen between polarization and redshift, optical luminosity, or the equivalent width of emission lines. The results are discussed in the context of both isotropic and anisotropic (beaming) models. While the associations between the optical and radio properties of highly polarized QSOs provide strong motivation for the anisotropic model, the lack of associations with redshift, optical luminosity, and emission-line strength is inconsistent with this model. It is concluded that the highly polarized QSOs are probably fundamentally different in their physical properties from low-polarization QSOs.
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