ALBERT

Description: Context. The azimuthal polarization patterns observed in some protoplanetary disks by the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) at millimeter wavelengths have raised doubts about whether they are truly produced by dust grains that are aligned with the magnetic field lines. These conclusions were based on the calculations of dust polarized emission in the Rayleigh regime, that is, for grain sizes that are much smaller than the wavelength. However, the grain size in such disks is typically estimated to be in the range of 0.1−1 mm from independent observations. Aims. We study the dust polarization properties of aligned grains in emission in the Mie regime, that is, when the mean grain size approaches the wavelength. Methods. By using the T-MATRIX and DustEM codes, we computed the spectral dependence of the polarization fraction in emission for grains in perfect spinning alignment for various grain size distributions. We restricted our study to weakly-elongated oblate and prolate grains of astrosilicate composition that have a mean size ranging from 10 μm to 1 mm. Results. In the submillimeter and millimeter wavelength range, the polarization by B-field aligned grains becomes negative for grains larger than ∼250 μm, meaning that the polarization vector becomes parallel to the B-field. The transition from the positive to the negative polarization occurs at a wavelength of λ ∼ 1 mm. The regime of negative polarization does not exist for grains that are smaller than ∼100 μm. Conclusions. When using realistic grain size distributions for disks with grains up to the submillimeter sizes, the polarization direction of thermal emission by aligned grains is shown to be parallel to the direction of the magnetic field over a significant fraction of the wavelengths typically used to observe young protoplanetary disks. This property may explain the peculiar azimuthal orientation of the polarization vectors in some of the disks observed with ALMA and attest to the conserved ability of dust polarized emission to trace the magnetic field in disks.

Description: Observations of the submillimetre emission from Galactic dust, in both total intensity I and polarization, have received tremendous interest thanks to the Planck full-sky maps. In this paper we make use of such full-sky maps of dust polarized emission produced from the third public release of Planck data. As the basis for expanding on astrophysical studies of the polarized thermal emission from Galactic dust, we present full-sky maps of the dust polarization fraction p, polarization angle ψ, and dispersion function of polarization angles ?. The joint distribution (one-point statistics) of p and NH confirms that the mean and maximum polarization fractions decrease with increasing NH. The uncertainty on the maximum observed polarization fraction, pmax = 22.0−1.4+3.5% at 353 GHz and 80′ resolution, is dominated by the uncertainty on the Galactic emission zero level in total intensity, in particular towards diffuse lines of sight at high Galactic latitudes. Furthermore, the inverse behaviour between p and ? found earlier is seen to be present at high latitudes. This follows the ? ∝ p−1 relationship expected from models of the polarized sky (including numerical simulations of magnetohydrodynamical turbulence) that include effects from only the topology of the turbulent magnetic field, but otherwise have uniform alignment and dust properties. Thus, the statistical properties of p, ψ, and ? for the most part reflect the structure of the Galactic magnetic field. Nevertheless, we search for potential signatures of varying grain alignment and dust properties. First, we analyse the product map ? × p, looking for residual trends. While the polarization fraction p decreases by a factor of 3−4 between NH = 1020 cm−2 and NH = 2 × 1022 cm−2, out of the Galactic plane, this product ? × p only decreases by about 25%. Because ? is independent of the grain alignment efficiency, this demonstrates that the systematic decrease in p with NH is determined mostly by the magnetic-field structure and not by a drop in grain alignment. This systematic trend is observed both in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) and in molecular clouds of the Gould Belt. Second, we look for a dependence of polarization properties on the dust temperature, as we would expect from the radiative alignment torque (RAT) theory. We find no systematic trend of ? × p with the dust temperature Td, whether in the diffuse ISM or in the molecular clouds of the Gould Belt. In the diffuse ISM, lines of sight with high polarization fraction p and low polarization angle dispersion ? tend, on the contrary, to have colder dust than lines of sight with low p and high ?. We also compare the Planck thermal dust polarization with starlight polarization data in the visible at high Galactic latitudes. The agreement in polarization angles is remarkable, and is consistent with what we expect from the noise and the observed dispersion of polarization angles in the visible on the scale of the Planck beam. The two polarization emission-to-extinction ratios, RP/p and RS/V, which primarily characterize dust optical properties, have only a weak dependence on the column density, and converge towards the values previously determined for translucent lines of sight. We also determine an upper limit for the polarization fraction in extinction, pV/E(B − V), of 13% at high Galactic latitude, compatible with the polarization fraction p ≈ 20% observed at 353 GHz. Taken together, these results provide strong constraints for models of Galactic dust in diffuse gas.

Description: The study of polarized dust emission has become entwined with the analysis of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization in the quest for the curl-like B-mode polarization from primordial gravitational waves and the low-multipole E-mode polarization associated with the reionization of the Universe. We used the new Planck PR3 maps to characterize Galactic dust emission at high latitudes as a foreground to the CMB polarization and use end-to-end simulations to compute uncertainties and assess the statistical significance of our measurements. We present Planck EE, BB, and TE power spectra of dust polarization at 353 GHz for a set of six nested high-Galactic-latitude sky regions covering from 24 to 71% of the sky. We present power-law fits to the angular power spectra, yielding evidence for statistically significant variations of the exponents over sky regions and a difference between the values for the EE and BB spectra, which for the largest sky region are αEE = −2.42 ± 0.02 and αBB = −2.54 ± 0.02, respectively. The spectra show that the TE correlation and E/B power asymmetry discovered by Planck extend to low multipoles that were not included in earlier Planck polarization papers due to residual data systematics. We also report evidence for a positive TB dust signal. Combining data from Planck and WMAP, we have determined the amplitudes and spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of polarized foregrounds, including the correlation between dust and synchrotron polarized emission, for the six sky regions as a function of multipole. This quantifies the challenge of the component-separation procedure that is required for measuring the low-ℓ reionization CMB E-mode signal and detecting the reionization and recombination peaks of primordial CMB B modes. The SED of polarized dust emission is fit well by a single-temperature modified black-body emission law from 353 GHz to below 70 GHz. For a dust temperature of 19.6 K, the mean dust spectral index for dust polarization is βdP = 1.53±0.02. The difference between indices for polarization and total intensity is βdP−βdI = 0.05±0.03. By fitting multi-frequency cross-spectra between Planck data at 100, 143, 217, and 353 GHz, we examine the correlation of the dust polarization maps across frequency. We find no evidence for a loss of correlation and provide lower limits to the correlation ratio that are tighter than values we derive from the correlation of the 217- and 353 GHz maps alone. If the Planck limit on decorrelation for the largest sky region applies to the smaller sky regions observed by sub-orbital experiments, then frequency decorrelation of dust polarization might not be a problem for CMB experiments aiming at a primordial B-mode detection limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio r ≃ 0.01 at the recombination peak. However, the Planck sensitivity precludes identifying how difficult the component-separation problem will be for more ambitious experiments targeting lower limits on r.

Description: Context. The degree of coupling between the gas and the magnetic field during the collapse of a core and the subsequent formation of a disk depends on the assumed dust size distribution. Aims. We study the impact of grain–grain coagulation on the evolution of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) resistivities during the collapse of a prestellar core. Methods. We use a 1D model to follow the evolution of the dust size distribution, out-of-equilibrium ionisation state, and gas chemistry during the collapse of a prestellar core. To compute the grain–grain collisional rate, we consider models for both random and systematic, size-dependent, velocities. We include grain growth through grain–grain coagulation and ice accretion, but ignore grain fragmentation. Results. Starting with a Mathis-Rumpl-Nordsieck (MRN) size distribution (Mathis et al. 1977, ApJ, 217, 425), we find that coagulation in grain–grain collisions generated by hydrodynamical turbulence is not efficient at removing the smallest grains and, as a consequence, does not have a large effect on the evolution of the Hall and ambipolar diffusion MHD resistivities, which still drop significantly during the collapse like in models without coagulation. The inclusion of systematic velocities, possibly induced by the presence of ambipolar diffusion, increases the coagulation rate between small and large grains, removing small grains earlier in the collapse and therefore limiting the drop in the Hall and ambipolar diffusion resistivities. At intermediate densities (nH ~ 108 cm−3), the Hall and ambipolar diffusion resistivities are found to be higher by 1 to 2 orders of magnitude in models with coagulation than in models where coagulation is ignored, and also higher than in a toy model without coagulation where all grains smaller than 0.1 μm would have been removed in the parent cloud before the collapse. Conclusions. When grain drift velocities induced by ambipolar diffusion are included, dust coagulation happening during the collapse of a prestellar core starting from an initial MRN dust size distribution appears to be efficient enough to increase the MHD resistivities to the values necessary to strongly modify the magnetically regulated formation of a planet-forming disk. A consistent treatment of the competition between fragmentation and coagulation is, however, necessary before reaching firm conclusions.