Browsing by Author "Dobbie, J.S."

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    Interstellar extinction by composite grains
    (Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2001-06-24) Vaidya, D.B.; Gupta, R; Dobbie, J.S.; et.al
    Recent studies indicate that interstellar grains are composites of very small individual particles of silicates and carbon glued together into an aggregate. Using the discrete dipole approximation (DDA), we calculate the extinction, scattering and absorption e ciencies for composite grains assumed to be made of a host silicate sphere with embedded graphite inclusions. In particular, we study the extinction as a function of inclusion size and volume fraction. Using the extinction e ciencies of these composite grains, we evaluate the interstellar extinction curve in the wavelength region of 0:55 m−0:20 m.
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    Scattering properties and composition of cometary dust
    (2005-04-01) Gupta, Ranjan; Vaidya, D.B.; Dobbie, J.S.; et al.
    Composition of the Comet dust obtained by the dust impact analyzer on the Halley probes indicated that the comet dust is a mixture of silicate and carbonaceous material. The collected interplanetary dust particles (IDP’s) are fluffy and composite, having grains of several different types stuck together. Using Discrete Dipole Approximation (DDA) we study the scattering properties of composite grains. In particular, we study the angular distribution of the scattered intensity and linear polarization of composite grains. We assume that the composite grains are made up of a host silicate sphere/spheroid with the inclusions of graphite. Results of our calculations on the composite grains show that the angle of maximum polarization shifts, and the degree of polarization varies with the volume fraction of the inclusions. We use these results on the composite grains to interpret the observed scattering in cometary dust.