Kavli Affiliate: James J. Bock
| First 5 Authors: Kohji Takimoto, Toshiaki Arai, Shuji Matsuura, James J. Bock, Asantha Cooray
| Summary:
We report the first measurement of the zodiacal light (ZL) polarization
spectrum in the near-infrared between 0.8 and 1.8 $mu$m. Using the
low-resolution spectrometer (LRS) on board the Cosmic Infrared Background
Experiment (CIBER), calibrated for absolute spectrophotometry and
spectropolarimetry, we acquire long-slit polarization spectral images of the
total diffuse sky brightness towards five fields. To extract the ZL spectrum,
we subtract contribution of other diffuse radiation, such as the diffuse
galactic light (DGL), the integrated star light (ISL), and the extragalactic
background light (EBL). The measured ZL polarization spectrum shows little
wavelength dependence in the near-infrared and the degree of polarization
clearly varies as a function of the ecliptic coordinates and solar elongation.
Among the observed fields, the North Ecliptic Pole shows the maximum degree of
polarization of $sim$ 20$%$, which is consistent with an earlier observation
from the Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE) aboard on the Cosmic
Background Explorer (COBE). The measured degree of polarization and its solar
elongation dependence are reproduced by the empirical scattering model in the
visible band and also by the Mie scattering model for large absorptive
particles, while the Rayleigh scattering model is ruled out. All of our results
suggest that the interplanetary dust is dominated by large particles.
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