Linear polarization study of open clusters towards the anticenter direction: Signature of the spiral arms
arXiv:2408.05603 · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202449537
Abstract
Our objective is to investigate the distribution of dust and associated large-scale structures of the Galaxy using optical linear polarization measurements of various open clusters located at different distances in the Galactic anticenter direction. We present R-band linear polarization observations of stars towards five open clusters: Kronberger~1, Berkeley~69, Berkeley~71, Berkeley~19, and King~8 in the anticenter direction. The polarization observations were carried out using AIMPOL instrument mounted on the 104 cm Sampurnanand telescope of ARIES, Nainital, making it the first study to target the polarization observations towards distant clusters (6~kpc). We combined the observed polarization data with the distance information from the Gaia space telescope to infer the dust distribution along the line of sight. The variation in the degree of polarization and extinction with distance reveals the presence of multiple dust layers along each cluster direction. In addition, common foreground dust layers detected towards different cluster directions highlight the presence of global features such as spiral arms. Our results show that the dust clouds at 2~kpc towards Berkeley~69 and Berkeley~71 coincide with the Perseus arm, while the dust layer at 4~kpc towards distant clusters, Berkeley~19 and King~8, indicates the presence of the Outer arm. The large-scale dust distribution obtained by combining our polarization results with the previous polarization studies of nearby open clusters suggests that the anticenter direction is characterized by low extinction, homogeneous dust distribution with somewhat uniform orientation of the plane-of-sky component of the magnetic field along the line of sight. Our study demonstrates the utility of polarization as a tool to study the large-scale dust distribution.
arXiv comment22 Pages, 14 Figures, 7 Tables, Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics Journal
References in corpus (46)
- Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
- The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE): Mission Description and Initial On-orbit Performance
- Gaia Data Release 3: Summary of the content and survey properties
- Binary companions of evolved stars in APOGEE DR14: Search method and catalog of ~5,000 companions
- The Milky Way in Molecular Clouds: A New Complete CO Survey
- Estimating distances from parallaxes. V: Geometric and photogeometric distances to 1.47 billion stars in Gaia Early Data Release 3
- HI4PI: A full-sky HI survey based on EBHIS and GASS
- Trigonometric Parallaxes of High Mass Star Forming Regions: the Structure and Kinematics of the Milky Way
- A 3D Dust Map Based on Gaia, Pan-STARRS 1 and 2MASS
- Trigonometric Parallaxes Of High-Mass Star Forming Regions: Our View Of The Milky Way
- Global survey of star clusters in the Milky Way II. The catalogue of basic parameters
- Hi-GAL: the Herschel infrared Galactic Plane Survey
- Estimating distances from parallaxes
- Three Dimensional Structure of the Milky Way Disk
- Gaia-2MASS 3D maps of Galactic interstellar dust within 3 kpc
- Improving the open cluster census. II. An all-sky cluster catalogue with Gaia DR3
- Updated Gaia-2MASS 3D maps of Galactic interstellar dust
- A parsec-scale Galactic 3D dust map out to 1.25 kpc from the Sun
- Error Analysis for Dual-Beam Optical Linear Polarimetry
- Three-dimensional extinction maps: Inverting inter-calibrated extinction catalogues
- Kinematic Distances: A Monte Carlo Method
- Gaia Early Data Release 3: The Galactic anticentre
- On the Milky Way spiral arms from open clusters in Gaia EDR3
- Modeling the magnetized Local Bubble from dust data
- Evolution of the local spiral structure of the Milky Way revealed by open clusters
- Multi-wavelength polarimetric study towards the open cluster NGC 1893
- Demonstration of magnetic field tomography with starlight polarization towards a diffuse sightline of the ISM
- Optical photometric and polarimetric investigation of NGC 1931
- Optical polarimetric study of open clusters: Distribution of Interstellar matter towards NGC 654
- PHANGS--JWST First Results: ISM structure on the turbulent Jeans scale in four disk galaxies observed by JWST and ALMA
- Broad-band Optical Polarimetric Studies toward the Galactic young star cluster Be 59
- Modelling interstellar extinction and polarization with spheroidal grains
- Starlight-polarization-based tomography of the magnetized interstellar medium: PASIPHAE's line-of-sight inversion method
- The Galactic Plane Infrared Polarization Survey (GPIPS): Data Release 4
- The first degree-scale starlight-polarization-based tomography map of the magnetized interstellar medium
- Warp and flare of the old Galactic disc as traced by the red clump stars
- Two-component Magnetic Field along the Line of Sight to the Perseus Molecular Cloud: Contribution of the Foreground Taurus Molecular Cloud
- Polarization, Polarizing Efficiency, and Grain alignment towards the direction of the cluster NGC 2345
- Optical Linear Polarization toward the Open Star Cluster Casado Alessi 1
- Filamentary Structures and Star Formation Activities in the Sites S234, V582, and IRAS 05231+3512
- Cluster Membership Probability: Polarimetric Approach
- Broadband Linear Polarization in the Region of the Open Star Cluster NGC 1817
- Revealing the dust grain polarization properties as a function of extinction and distance towards NGC 1893
- A new interpretation of Serkowski's polarization law
- A Comparative Study of Dust Grain Polarisation Efficiencies in the Interstellar and Intracluster Mediums towards Anti-Center Galaxy
- Optical linear polarization study towards Czernik 3 open cluster at different spatial scales