Comparing submillimeter polarized emission with near-infrared polarization of background stars for the Vela C molecular cloud

• Main Authors: Santos, Fabio P., Ade, Peter A. R., Angile, Francesco E., Ashton, Peter, Benton, Steven J., Devlin, Mark J., Dober, Bradley, Fissel, Laura M., Fukui, Yasuo, Galitzki, Nicholas, Gandilo, Natalie N., Klein, Jeffrey, Korotkov, Andrei L., Li, Zhi-Yun, Martin, Peter G., Matthews, Tristan G., Moncelsi, Lorenzo, Nakamura, Fumitaka, Netterfield, Calvin B., Novak, Giles, Pascale, Enzo, Poidevin, Frederick, Savini, Giorgio, Scott, Douglas, Shariff, Jamil A., Soler, Juan Diego, Thomas, Nicholas E., Tucker, Carole E., Tucker, Gregory S., Ward-Thompson, Derek
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: arXiv 2016
• Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies astro-ph.GA; FOS Physical sciences; Starlight; antartic*
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1605.08522; https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.08522

We present a large-scale combination of near-infrared (near-IR) interstellar polarization data from background starlight with polarized emission data at submillimeter (sub-mm) wavelengths for the Vela C molecular cloud. The near-IR data consist of more than 6700 detections probing a range of visual extinctions between $2$ and $20\,$mag in and around the cloud. The sub-mm data was collected in Antartica by the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol). This is the first direct combination of near-IR and sub-mm polarization data for a molecular cloud aimed at measuring the "polarization efficiency ratio" ($R_{\mathrm{eff}}$), a quantity that is expected to depend only on grain intrinsic physical properties. It is defined as $p_{500}/(p_{I}/τ_{V})$, where $p_{500}$ and $p_{I}$ are polarization fractions at $500\,μ$m and $I$-band, respectively, and $τ_{V}$ is the optical depth. To ensure that the same column density of material is producing both polarization from emission and from extinction, we conducted a careful selection of near-background stars using 2MASS, $Herschel$ and $Planck$ data. This selection excludes objects contaminated by the Galactic diffuse background material as well as objects located in the foreground. Accounting for statistical and systematic uncertainties, we estimate an average $R_{\mathrm{eff}}$ value of $2.4\pm0.8$, which can be used to test the predictions of dust grain models designed for molecular clouds when such predictions become available. $R_{\mathrm{eff}}$ appears to be relatively flat as a function of the cloud depth for the range of visual extinctions probed. : 23 pages, accepted by the Astrophysical Journal