Planck polarimetry: modeling the galactic magnetic field.

Abstract

I created a model of polarized emission from dust grains aligned with the galactic magnetic field for comparison with Planck observations. I modeled the magnetic field in the galactic disk as a field with a cylindrical constant component and an equal strength random component. I investigated how the fractional polarization down a line of sight varies with different models of a random field. I determine that different models of random fields yield different amounts of fractional polarization, especially over sightlines longer than a decorrelation length.