IUCAA Preprints

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    Interstellar Extinction by Spheroidal Dust Grains
    (2005-06-01) Gupta, Ranjan
    Observations of interstellar extinction and polarization indicate that the interstellar medium consists of aligned non-spherical dust grains which show variation in the interstellar extinction curve for wavelengths ranging from NIR to UV. To model the extinction and polarization, one cannot use the conventional Mie theory which assumes the grains as solid spheres. We have used a T-matrix based method for computing the extinction efficien- cies of spheroidal silicate and graphite grains of different shapes (axial ratios) and sizes and used these efficiencies to evaluate the interstellar extinction curve in the wavelength range 3.4 − 0.1 m. A best fit linear combination of silicate and graphite grains of not very large axial ratio, fits the observed extinction curve reasonably well. We calculate the volume extinction factor Vc, which is an important parameter from the point of view of the cosmic abundance, for the spheroidal grain models that reproduce the interstellar extinction curve. We find that the shape of the grains do not affect the volume extinction factor. Finally we have also studied the extinction and linear polarization efficiencies for aligned spheroids. The results show that the shape of grains affects the linear polarization efficiencies considerably for various orientation angles of the spheroids.
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    Analysis of the distribution of background star polarization in dark clouds
    (2005-04-01) Sen, A.K.; Mukai, T.; Gupta, Ranjan; et al.
    The polarization observed for stars background to dark clouds (Bok Globules) is often used as diagnostic to study the ongoing star formation processes in these clouds. Such polarization maps in the optical have been reported for eight nearby clouds CB3, CB25, CB39, CB52, CB54, CB58, CB62 and CB246 in one of our previous work (Sen et al 2000). With a view to understand the origin of this polarization, in the present work attempts are made to look for any possible relation between this observed polarization and other physical parameters in the cloud (like temperature, turbulence etc.). The observed polarization does not seem to be clearly related to the dust and gas temperatures (Td and Tg) in the cloud as expected from Davis-Greenstein grain alignment mechanism (Davis & Greenstein 1952). However, the average observed polarization (pav) appears to be related to the turbulence ∆V (measured by 12CO line width) by the mathematical relation pav = 2.95 exp(−0.24∆V ). The possible relation between the direction of polarization vector and other physical parameters are also discussed. For this analysis in addition to the data on above eight dark clouds, the data on CB4 (Kane et al. 1995) are also included for comparison.
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    Composite Interstellar Grains
    (2007-01-20) Vaidya, D.B.; Gupta, Ranjan; Snow, T. P.
    A composite dust grain model which is consistent with the observed interstellar extinction and linear polarization is presented. The composite grain is made up of a host silicate spheroid and graphite inclusions. The extinction e ciencies of the composite spheroidal grains for three axial ratios are computed using the discrete dipole approximation (DDA). The interstellar extinction curve is evaluated in the spectral region 3.40{0.10 musing the extinction e ciencies of the composite spheroidal grains. The model extinction curves are then compared with the average observed interstellar extinction curve.We also calculate the linear polarization for the spheroidal composite grains at three orientation angles and nd the wavelength of maximum polarization. Further, we estimate the volume extinction factor, an important parameter from the point of view of cosmic abundance, for the composite grain models that reproduce the average observed interstellar extinction. The estimated abundances derived from the composite grain models for both carbon and silicon are found to be lower than that are predicted by the bare silicate/graphite grain models but these values are still higher than that are implied from the recent ISM values
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    Interstellar dust models towards some IUE stars
    (2010-11-24) Katyal, Nisha; Gupta, Ranjan; Vaidya, D.B.
    We present a study of interstellar extinction towards certain directions in our galaxy defined by about 59 stars which were observed by the IUE satellite. The observed UV extinction curves have been modeled by making light scattering calculations based on Discrete Dipole Approximation (DDA) for extinction efficiencies of composite dust grains which is made up of a host silicate spheroid and graphite inclusions. The study indicates that smaller dust grains are more efficient for the directions in the galaxy where observed Rv values are found to be low.