The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society (천문학회보)
- Volume 41 Issue 2
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- Pages.50.2-50.2
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- 2016
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- 1226-2692(pISSN)
A Study of Polarimetric Properties of Comet C/2013 US10 (Catalina) in Optical and Near-Infrared Wavelength Regions
- Kwon, Yuna Grace (Seoul National University) ;
- Ishiguro, Masateru (Seoul National University) ;
- Kuroda, Daisuke (Okayama Astrophysical Observatory) ;
- Hanayama, Hidekazu (Ishigakijima Astronomical Observatory) ;
- Kawabata, Koji S. (Hiroshima University) ;
- Akitaya, Hiroshi (Hiroshima University) ;
- Itoh, Ryosuke (Hiroshima University) ;
- Nakaoka, Tatsuya (Hiroshima University) ;
- Toda, Hiroshi (Okayama Astrophysical Observatory) ;
- Yoshida, Michitoshi (Hiroshima University) ;
- Kawai, Nobuyuki (Tokyo Institute of Technology) ;
- Watanabe, Jun-Ichi (National Astronomical Observatory)
- Published : 2016.10.12
Abstract
Polarization is a rich source of information on the physical properties of astronomical objects. In particular, scattered sunlight by optically thin media (e.g., cometary comae) shows linear polarization of light, which highly depends on the phase angle (an angle between the Sun-Comet-Earth), wavelengths, and physical properties of cometary dust particles such as size, composition, and structures. Here, we present a study of polarimetric properties of non-periodic comet C/2013 US10 (Catalina) in optical and near-infrared wavelength regions obtained from imaging, spectroscopy, and polarimetric observations taken on UT 2015 December 17 - 19 welcoming its (probably) first close approach to the Earth. In this presentation, we want to introduce our progress since the last Korean Astronomical Society meeting (at BEXCO, Busan, 2016 April 14 - 15) especially in terms of spatial variations of degree of linear polarization (DOLP) and its possible scenarios to explain the correlations with other observational results. In particular, we found that there is strong anti-correlation between the gas/dust flux ratio and DOLP at the cometocentric distance of
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