arXiv subjects

N. V. Voshchinnikov

Publications and source records attributed to N. V. Voshchinnikov.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2017

Large Interstellar Polarisation Survey II. UV/optical study of cloud-to-cloud variations of dust in the diffuse ISM

It is well known that the dust properties of the diffuse interstellar medium exhibit variations towards different sight-lines on a large scale. We have investigated the variability of the dust characteristics on a small scale, and from cloud-to-cloud. We use low-resolution spectro-polarimetric data obtained in the context of the Large Interstellar Polarisation Survey (LIPS) towards 59 sight-lines in the Southern Hemisphere, and we fit these data using a dust model composed of silicate and carbon particles with sizes from the molecular to the sub-micrometre domain. Large (> 6 nm) silicates of prolate shape account for the observed polarisation. For 32 sight-lines we complement our data set with UVES archive high-resolution spectra, which enable us to establish the presence of single-cloud or multiple-clouds towards individual sight-lines. We find that the majority of these 35 sight-lines intersect two or more clouds, while eight of them are dominated by a single absorbing cloud. We confirm several correlations between extinction and parameters of the Serkowski law with dust parameters, but we also find previously undetected correlations between these parameters that are valid only in single-cloud sight-lines. We find that interstellar polarisation from multiple-clouds is smaller than from single-cloud sight-lines, showing that the presence of a second or more clouds depolarises the incoming radiation. We find large variations of the dust characteristics from cloud-to-cloud. However, when we average a sufficiently large number of clouds in single-cloud or multiple-cloud sight-lines, we always retrieve similar mean dust parameters. The typical dust abundances of the single-cloud cases are [C]/[H] = 92 ppm and [Si]/[H] = 20 ppm.

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arXiv2017

Large Interstellar Polarisation Survey. LIPS I: FORS2 spectropolarimetry in the Southern Hemisphere

Polarimetric studies of light transmitted through interstellar clouds may give constraints on the properties of the interstellar dust grains. Traditionally, broadband linear polarisation (BBLP) measurements have been considered an important diagnostic tool for the study of the interstellar dust, while comparatively less attention has been paid to spectropolarimetric measurements. However, spectropolarimetry may offer stronger constraints than BBLP, for example by revealing narrowband features, and by allowing us to distinguish the contribution of dust from the contribution of interstellar gas. Therefore, we have decided to carry out a Large Interstellar Polarisation Survey (LIPS) using spectropolarimetric facilities in both hemispheres. Here we present the results obtained in the Southern Hemisphere with the FORS2 instrument of the ESO Very Large Telescope. Our spectra cover the wavelength range 380--950\,nm at a spectral resolving power of about 880. We have produced a publicly available catalogue of 127 linear polarisation spectra of 101 targets. We also provide the Serkowski-curve parameters, as well as the wavelength gradient of the polarisation position angle for the interstellar polarisation along 76 different lines of sight. In agreement with previous literature, we found that the best-fit parameters of the Serkowski-curve are not independent of each other. However, the relationships that we obtained are not always consistent with what was found in previous studies.

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arXiv2017

Constraints on interstellar dust models from extinction and spectro-polarimetry

We present polarisation spectra of seven stars in the lines-of-sight towards the Sco OB1 association. Our spectra were obtained within the framework of the Large Interstellar Polarization Survey carried out with the FORS instrument of the ESO VLT. We have modelled the wavelength-dependence of extinction and linear polarisation with a dust model for the diffuse interstellar medium which consists of a mixture of particles with size ranging from the molecular domain of 0.5 nm up to 350 nm. We have included stochastically heated small dust grains with radii between 0.5 and 6 nm made of graphite and silicate, as well as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecules (PAHs), and we have assumed that larger particles are prolate spheroids made of amorphous carbon and silicate. Overall, a dust model with eight free parameters best reproduces the observations. Reducing the number of free parameters leads to results that are inconsistent with cosmic abundance constraints. We found that aligned silicates are the dominant contributor to the observed polarisation, and that the polarisation spectra are best-fit by a lower limit of the equivolume sphere radius of aligned grains of 70 - 200nm.

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arXiv2016

Polarizing efficiency as a guide of grain growth and interstellar magnetic field properties

We interpret the relation between the polarizing efficiency $P_{\max}/E(B-V)$ and the wavelength of the maximum polarization $λ_{\max}$ observed for 17 objects (including 243 stars) separated into two groups: "dark clouds" and "open clusters". The objects are assigned to one of the groups according to the distribution of the parameter $λ_{\max}$. We use the model of homogeneous silicate and carbonaceous spheroidal particles with the imperfect alignment and a time-evolving size distribution. The polarization is assumed to be mainly produced by large silicate particles with the sizes $r_{V} \ga r_{V,\rm cut}$. The models with the initial size distribution reproducing the average curve of the interstellar extinction fail to explain the values of $λ_{\max} \ga 0.65\,\mkm$ observed for several dark clouds. We assume that the grain size distribution is modified due to accretion and coagulation, according to the model of Hirashita \& Voshchinnikov (2014). After including the evolutionary effects, $λ_{\max}$ shifts to longer wavelengths on time-scales $\sim 20 (n_\mathrm{H}/10^3 \mathrm{cm}^{-3})^{-1}$ Myr where $n_\mathrm{H}$ is the hydrogen density in molecular clouds where dust processing occurs. The ratio $P_{\max}/E(B-V)$ goes down dramatically when the size of polarizing grains grows. The variations of the degree and direction of particle orientation influence this ratio only moderately. We have also found that the aspect ratio of prolate grains does not affect significantly the polarizing efficiency. For oblate particles, the shape effect is stronger but in most cases the polarization curves produced are too narrow in comparison with the observed ones.

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arXiv2015

Large dust grains in the wind of VY Canis Majoris

Massive stars live short lives, losing large amounts of mass through their stellar wind. Their mass is a key factor determining how and when they explode as supernovae, enriching the interstellar medium with heavy elements and dust. During the red supergiant phase, mass-loss rates increase prodigiously, but the driving mechanism has proven elusive. Here we present high-contrast optical polarimetric-imaging observations of the extreme red supergiant VY Canis Majoris and its clumpy, dusty, mass-loss envelope, using the new extreme-adaptive-optics instrument SPHERE at the VLT. These observations allow us to make the first direct and unambiguous detection of submicron dust grains in the ejecta; we derive an average grain radius $\sim$ 0.5 $μ$m, 50 times larger than in the diffuse ISM, large enough to receive significant radiation pressure by photon scattering. We find evidence for varying grain sizes throughout the ejecta, highlighting the dynamical nature of the envelope. Grains with 0.5 $μ$m sizes are likely to reach a safe distance from the eventual explosion of VY Canis Majoris; hence it may inject upwards of 10$^{-2}$ M$_\odot$ of dust into the ISM.

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arXiv2014

Imaging polarimetry of the rotating Bok globule CB67

Polarimetric observations of about 50 stars located in a close vicinity of the Bok globule CB67 having significantly nonspherical shape and rapid rotation are performed. The data obtained are compared with the available observations of this globule at radio and submillimeter wavelengths as well as some theoretical calculations. It is found that the elongation and the rotation moment of CB67 are oriented rather perpendicular to the magnetic fields, which is unusual for Bok globules and is difficult to be explained from the theoretical point of view.

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arXiv2013

Dust in the diffuse interstellar medium: Extinction, emission, linear and circular polarisation

We present a model for the diffuse interstellar dust that explains the observed wavelength-dependence of extinction, emission, linear and circular polarisation of light. The model is set-up with a small number of parameters. It consists of a mixture of amorphous carbon and silicate grains with sizes from the molecular domain of 0.5 up to about 500nm. Dust grains with radii larger than 6nm are spheroids. Spheroidal dust particles have a factor 1.5 - 3 larger absorption cross section in the far IR than spherical grains of the same volume. Mass estimates derived from submillimeter observations that ignore this effect are overestimated by the same amount. In the presence of a magnetic field, spheroids may be partly aligned and polarise light. We find that polarisation spectra help to determine the upper particle radius of the otherwise rather unconstrained dust size distribution. Stochastically heated small grains of graphite, silicates and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are included. We tabulate parameters for PAH emission bands in various environments. They show a trend with the hardness of the radiation field that can be explained by the ionisation state or hydrogenation coverage of the molecules. For each dust component its relative weight is specified, so that absolute element abundances are not direct input parameters. The model is confronted with the average properties of the Milky Way, which seems to represent dust in the solar neighbourhood. It is then applied to four specific sight lines including the reflection nebula NGC2023. For these sight lines, we present linear and circular spectro-polarimetric observations obtained with FORS/VLT. Using prolate rather than oblate grains gives a better fit to observed spectra; the axial ratio of the spheroids is typically two and aligned silicates are the dominant contributor to the polarisation.

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arXiv2013

Systematic variations of interstellar linear polarization and growth of dust grains

A quantitative interpretation of the observed relation between the interstellar linear polarization curve parameters $K$ and $λ_{\max}$ characterizing the width and the wavelength of a polarization maximum, respectively, is given. The observational data available for 57 stars located in the dark clouds in Taurus, Chamaeleon, around the stars $ρ$ Oph and R CrA are considered. The spheroidal particle model of interstellar dust grains earlier applied to simultaneously interpret the interstellar extinction and polarization curves in a wide spectral range is utilized. The observed trend $K \approx 1.7 λ_{\max}$ is shown to be most likely related to a growth of dust grains due to coagulation rather than mantle accretion. The relation of the parameters $K$ and $λ_{\max}$ with an average size of silicate dust grains is discussed.

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arXiv2012

Interstellar extinction and interstellar polarization: old and new models

The review contains an analysis of the observed and model curves of the interstellar extinction and polarization. The observations mainly give information on dust in diffuse and translucent interstellar clouds. The features of various dust grain models including spherical/non-spherical, homogeneous/inhomogeneous particles are discussed. A special attention is devoted to the analysis of the grain size distributions, alignment mechanisms and magnetic field structure in interstellar clouds. It is concluded that the interpretation of interstellar extinction and polarization is not yet complete.

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arXiv2012

Interstellar polarization and grain alignment: the role of iron and silicon

We compiled the polarimetric data for a sample of lines of sight with known abundances of Mg, Si, and Fe. We correlated the degree of interstellar polarization $P$ and polarization efficiency (the ratio of $P$ to the colour excess $E(B-V)$ or extinction $A_V$) with dust phase abundances. We detect an anticorrelation between $P$ and the dust phase abundance of iron in non silicate - containing grains $< [\rm Fe(rest)/H > ]_\rm d$, a correlation between $P$ and the abundance of Si, and no correlation between $P/E(B-V)$ or $P/A_V$ and dust phase abundances. These findings can be explained if mainly the silicate grains aligned by the radiative mechanism are responsible for the observed interstellar linear polarization.

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arXiv2010

From interstellar abundances to grain composition: the major dust constituents Mg, Si and Fe

We analyse observational correlations for three elements entering into the composition of interstellar silicate and oxide grains. Using current solar abundances (Asplund et al. 2009), we convert the gas-phase abundances into dust-phase abundances for 196 sightlines. We deduce a sharp difference in abundances for sightlines located at low ($|b|<30\degr$) and high ($|b|>30\degr$) galactic latitudes. For high-latitude stars the ratios Mg/Si and Fe/Si in dust are close to 1.5. For disk stars they are reduced to ${\rm Mg/Si} \sim 1.2$ and ${\rm Fe/Si} \sim 1.05$. The derived numbers indicate that 1) the dust grains cannot be the mixture of silicates with olivine and pyroxene composition only and some amount of magnesium or iron (or both) should be in another population and 2) the destruction of Mg-rich grains in the warm medium is more effective than of Fe-rich grains. We reveal a decrease of dust-phase abundances and correspondingly an increase of gas-phase abundances with distance $D$ for stars with $D\ga 400$\,pc. We attribute this fact to an observational selection effect: a systematic trend toward smaller observed hydrogen column density for distant stars. We find differences in abundances for disk stars with low ($E({\rm B-V}) \la 0.2$) and high ($E({\rm B-V}) \ga 0.2$) reddenings which reflect the distinction between the sightlines passing through diffuse and translucent interstellar clouds. For Scorpius-Ophiuchus we detect an uniform increase of dust-phase abundances of Mg and Si with an increase of the ratio of total to selective extinction $R_{\rm V}$ and a decrease of the strength of the far-UV extinction. This is the first evidence for a growth of Mg-Si grains due to accretion in the interstellar medium.

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arXiv2010

Interstellar extinction and polarization -- A spheroidal dust grain approach perspective

We extend and investigate the spheroidal model of interstellar dust grains used to simultaneously interpret the observed interstellar extinction and polarization curves. We compare our model with similar models recently suggested by other authors, study its properties and apply it to fit the normalized extinction $A(λ)/A_{\rm V}$ and the polarizing efficiency $P(λ)/A(λ)$ measured in the near IR to far UV region for several stars seen through one large cloud. We conclude that the model parameter $Ω$ being the angle between the line of sight and the magnetic field direction can be more or less reliably determined from comparison of the theory and observations. This opens a way to study the spatial structure of interstellar magnetic fields by using multi-wavelength photometric and polarimetric observations.

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arXiv2008

Is the silicate emission feature only influenced by grain size?

The flattening of the 10mu silicate emission feature observed in the spectra of T Tauri and Herbig Ae/Be stars is usually interpreted as an indicator of grain growth. We show in this paper that a similar behaviour of the feature shape occurs when the porosity of composite grains varies. The fluffy aggregates, having inclusions of different sizes, were modeled by multi-layered spheres consisting of amorphous carbon, amorphous silicate and vacuum. It is also found that the inclusion of crystalline silicates in composite porous particles can lead to a shift of the known resonances and production of new ones.

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arXiv2008

Modelling interstellar extinction and polarization with spheroidal grains

We calculate the wavelength dependence of the ratio of the linear polarization degree to extinction (polarizing efficiency) $P(λ)/A(λ)$ from the ultraviolet to near-infrared. The prolate and oblate particles with aspect ratios from $a/b=1.1$ up to 10 are assumed to be rotating and partially aligned with the mechanism of paramagnetic relaxation (Davis--Greenstein). Size/shape/orientation effects are analyzed. It is found that the wavelength dependence of $P(λ)/A(λ)$ is mainly determined by the particle composition and size whereas the values of $P(λ)/A(λ)$ depend on the particle shape, degree and direction of alignment.

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arXiv2007

Effective medium theories for irregular fluffy structures: aggregation of small particles

We study the extinction efficiencies as well as scattering properties of particles of different porosity. Calculations are performed for porous pseudospheres with small size (Rayleigh) inclusions using the discrete dipole approximation. Five refractive indices of materials covering the range from $1.20+0.00i$ to $1.75+0.58i$ were selected. They correspond to biological particles, dirty ice, silicate, amorphous carbon and soot in the visual part of spectrum. We attempt to describe the optical properties of such particles using Lorenz-Mie theory and a refractive index found from some effective medium theory (EMT) assuming the particle is homogeneous. We refer to this as the effective model. It is found that the deviations are minimal when utilizing the EMT based on the Bruggeman mixing rule. Usually the deviations in extinction factor do not exceed $\sim 5%$ for particle porosity ${\cal P}=0 - 0.9$ and size parameters $x_{\rm porous} = 2 πr_{\rm s, porous}/λ\la 25$. The deviations are larger for scattering and absorption efficiencies and smaller for particle albedo and asymmetry parameter. Our calculations made for spheroids confirm these conclusions. Preliminary consideration shows that the effective model represents the intensity and polarization of radiation scattered by fluffy aggregates quite well. Thus, the effective models of spherical and non-spherical particles can be used to significantly simplify computations of the optical properties of aggregates containing only Rayleigh inclusions.

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arXiv2006

Analysis of the dust evolution in the circumstellar disks of TTauri stars

We present a compositional analysis of 8-13um spectra of 32 young stellar objects (YSOs). Our sample consists of 5 intermediate-mass stars and 27 low-mass stars. While the spectra and first scientific results have already been published by Przygodda et al. (2003) and Kessler-Silacci et al. (2004) we perform a more detailed analysis of the 10um silicate feature. In our analysis we assume that this emission feature can be represented by a linear superposition of the wavelength-dependent opacity $κ_{\rm abs}(λ)$ describing the optical properties of silicate grains with different chemical composition, structure, and grain size. The determination of an adequate fitting equation is another goal of this study. Using a restricted number of fitting parameters we investigate which silicate species are necessary for the compositional fitting. Particles with radii of 0.1um- and 1.5um consisting of amorphous olivine and pyroxene, forsterite, enstatite, and quartz have been considered. Only compact, homogeneous dust grains have been used in the presented fitting procedures. In this context we show that acceptable fitting results can also be achieved if emission properties of porous silicate grains are considered instead. Although some previous studies give reasons for the similarity between the dust in circumstellar disks of TTauri stars and Herbig Ae/Be stars, a quantitative comparison has been missing, so far. Therefore, we conclude with a discussion of the results of a 10um spectroscopic survey of van Boekel et al. (2005) who focus on Herbig Ae/Be stars, the higher mass counterparts of T Tauri stars and draw comparisons to this and other studies. We find that the results of our study of T Tauri systems partly agree with previous studies of Herbig Ae/Be stars.

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arXiv2005

Dust extinction and absorption: the challenge of porous grains

In many models of dusty objects in space the grains are assumed to be composite or fluffy. However, the computation of the optical properties of such particles is still a very difficult problem. We analyze how the increase of grain porosity influences basic features of cosmic dust -- interstellar extinction, dust temperature, infrared bands and millimeter opacity. Porous grains can reproduce the flat extinction across the $3 - 8 \mkm$ wavelength range measured for several lines of sight by {\it ISO} and {\it Spitzer}. Porous grains are generally cooler than compact grains. At the same time, the temperature of very porous grains becomes slightly larger in the case of the EMT-Mie calculations in comparison with the results found from the layered-sphere model. The layered-sphere model predicts a broadening of infrared bands and a shift of the peak position to larger wavelengths as porosity grows. In the case of the EMT-Mie model variations of the feature profile are less significant. It is also shown that the millimeter mass absorption coefficients grow as porosity increases with a faster growth occurring for particles with Rayleigh/non-Rayleigh inclusions. As a result, for very porous particles the coefficients given by two models can differ by a factor of about 3. It is found that an increase of porosity leads to an increase of extinction cross sections at some wavelengths and a decrease at others depending on the grain model. However, this behaviour is sufficient to reproduce the extinction curve in the direction of the star $σ$ Sco using current solar abundances. In the case of the star $ζ$ Oph our model requires larger amounts of carbon and iron in the dust-phase than is available.

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arXiv2004

Modelling the optical properties of composite and porous interstellar grains

There are indications that interstellar and interplanetary dust grains have an inhomogeneous and fluffy structure. We investigate different methods to describe light scattering by such composite particles. Both a model of layered particles and discrete dipole calculations for particles with Rayleigh and non-Rayleigh inclusions are used. The calculations demonstrate that porosity is a key parameter for determining light scattering. We find that the optical properties of the layered particles depend on the number and position of layers if the number of layers is small ($\la 15$). For a larger number of layers the scattering characteristics become independent of the layer sequence. The optical properties of particles with inclusions depend on the size of inclusions provided the porosity is large. The scattering characteristics of very porous particles with inclusions of different sizes are found to be close to those of multi-layered spheres. We compare the results of these calculations with the predictions of the effective medium theories (EMT) which are often used in astronomy as a tool to calculate the optical properties of composite particles. The results of our analysis show that the internal structure of grains (layers versus inclusions) only slightly affects the optics of particles provided the porosity does not exceed 50%. It is also demonstrated that in this case the optical properties of composite grains calculated with EMT agree with the results of the exact method for layered particles. For larger porosity, the standard EMT rules (i.e., Garnett and Bruggeman rules) give reliable results for particles with Rayleigh inclusions only.

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