Polarization of Thermal Emission from Aligned Dust Grains under an Anisotropic Radiation Field

Abstract

If aspherical dust grains are immersed in an anisotropic radiation field, their temperature depends on the cross-sections projected in the direction of the anisotropy.It was shown that the temperature difference produces polarized thermal emission even without alignment, if the observer looks at the grains from a direction different from the anisotropic radiation. When the dust grains are aligned, the anisotropy in the radiation makes various effects on the polarization of the thermal emission, depending on the relative angle between the anisotropy and alignment directions. If the both directions are parallel, the anisotropy produces a steep increase in the polarization degree at short wavelengths. If they are perpendicular, the polarization reversal occurs at a wavelength shorter than the emission peak. The effect of the anisotropic radiation will make a change of more than a few % in the polarization degree for short wavelengths and the effect must be taken into account in the interpretation of the polarization in the thermal emission. The anisotropy in the radiation field produces a strong spectral dependence of the polarization degree and position angle, which is not seen under isotropic radiation. The dependence changes with the grain shape to a detectable level and thus it will provide a new tool to investigate the shape of dust grains. This paper presents examples of numerical calculations of the effects and demonstrates the importance of anisotropic radiation field on the polarized thermal emission.