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Paper: Imaging the Polarized Interstellar Medium
Volume: 217, Imaging at Radio Through Submillimeter Wavelengths
Page: 150
Authors: Greaves, J. S.; Jenness, T.; Chrysostomou, A. C.; Holland, W. S.; Berry, D. S.
Abstract: We present some of the first results from the imaging polarimeter on the the submillimetre camera SCUBA, at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. Polarization from aligned dust grains is a direct way to map the magnetic field structure in many interstellar sources, on scales ranging from very cold, inactive, cloud cores all the way out to dusty tori in starburst galaxies. Magnetic fields play a key role in gas energetics and evolution, and the field structure can trace physical processes such as collapse, disk formation and outflow collimation. This is a technique which has just been implemented for submillimetre imaging, producing hundreds of polarization vectors in contrast to previous point-by-point observations. We show initial dust polarization images of OMC1, the Galactic Centre and M82. Prospects for the very new technique of submillimetre spectropolarimetry with heterodyne cameras are also discussed.
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