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W. J. Henney

Publications and source records attributed to W. J. Henney.

38 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Polarization Profiles of Scattered Emission Lines. I. General Formalism for Optically Thin Rayleigh Scattering

A general theoretical framework is developed for interpreting spectropolarimetric observations of optically thin emission line scattering from small dust particles. Spatially integrated and spatially resolved line profiles of both scattered intensity and polarization are calculated analytically from a variety of simple kinematic models. These calculations will provide a foundation for further studies of emission line scattering from dust and electrons in such diverse astrophysical environments as Herbig-Haro objects, symbiotic stars, starburst galaxies and active galactic nuclei.

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Polarization Profiles of Scattered Emission Lines. II. Upstream Dust Scattering in the HH 1 Jet

Detailed comparisons are made between observations of scattered light upstream of the head of the HH~1 jet and predictions of simple scattering models. It is shown that, in order to unambiguously determine the velocity of the head of the jet (bow shock) with respect to the upstream dust, existing spectroscopic observations are insufficient and that spectropolarimetric observations of the scattered light are necessary. Such an independent measure of the bow shock velocity is important in order to test ``multiple outflow'' theories of Herbig-Haro jets. It is also shown 2that the scattering dust must have a very forward-throwing scattering phase function ($\langle\cosθ\rangle\msim 0.7$) and slight evidence is found for a dust-gas ratio that is higher than average.

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