J/AJ/110/268 J/AJ/110/268 Red and infrared polarimetry in galactic plane M Creese T J Jones H A Kobulnicky Astron. J. 110 268 1995 1995AJ....110..268C Photometry, infrared Polarization We present VRIJHK polarimetry and JHK photometry of highly reddened stars found in an objective prism survey published by Stephenson (1992AJ....103..263S). The JHK colors of these stars are consistent with interstellar extinction as the dominant source of the reddening. The distribution of the polarization position angles in Galactic coordinates is very similar to previous optical polarimetry surveys such as Mathewson & Ford ([MNRAS, 74, 139 (1970)]. However, for the redder stars with IR polarimetry, the polarization strength is moderately lower than expected for the amount of extinction. We postulate that the line of sight to many of these stars samples specific regions where the grain population has poor polarizing properties, while the remainder of the line of sight is similar to the paths sampled by previous optical surveys. The wavelength dependence of the polarization from 1-2.5{mu}m for this sample of stars shows weak evidence for a greater departure from the mean for interstellar polarization than for most published near-infrared polarimetry.

Star Star number from Stephenson (1992) --- PolV Polarisation in V filter % e_PolV rms uncertainty on PV % PAV Position angle in V filter deg PolR Polarisation in R filter % e_PolR rms uncertainty on PR % PAR Position angle in R filter deg PolI Polarisation in I filter % e_PolI rms uncertainty on PI % PAI Position angle in I filter deg PolJ Polarisation in J filter % e_PolJ rms uncertainty on PJ % PAJ Position angle in J filter deg PolH Polarisation in H filter % e_PolH rms uncertainty on PH % PAH Position angle in H filter deg PolK Polarisation in K filter % e_PolK rms uncertainty on PK % PAK Position angle in K filter deg Star Star number from Stephenson (1992) --- PolR Polarimetry in R filter % e_PolR rms uncertainty on PR % PAR Position angle in R filter deg Star Star number from Stephenson (1992) --- Jmag J magnitude mag e_Jmag rms uncertainty on J magnitude mag Hmag H magnitude mag e_Hmag rms uncertainty on H magnitude mag Kmag K magnitude mag e_Kmag rms uncertainty on K magnitude mag Patricia Bauer CDS 1996Apr04Terry Jones <tjj@astro.spa.umn.edu> J_AJ_110_268.xml