Astrophysics

    

Evaluating the Alignment of 106 Linearly Polarized Optical QSOs

Authors: Richard Shurtleff

A sample of partially linearly polarized optical quasars (QSOs) is analyzed by the Hub Test. The data originates in an online catalog of 355 such QSOs, collected and published by others. Without their efforts this article would not be possible. The 106 QSOs populate a region with a radius of about 40 degrees centered on a point in the sky near the South Galactic Pole. We find the polarization directions to be extremely well aligned. Besides supplying convincing evidence that the alignment is not due to chance, additional quantities are calculated that describe the collective behavior of the polarization directions. The alignment function mapped onto the Celestial Sphere provides a satisfying visual representation. This article is a Mathematica notebook.

Comments: 46 pages, 19 figures

Download: PDF

Submission history

[v1] 2021-02-18 13:47:46

Unique-IP document downloads: 165 times

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