Authors: Richard Shurtleff
Detecting polarized starlight projects an intriguing pattern of polarization directions on the Galaxy. Polarized starlight is a well known tracer of Galactic Magnetic fields and acts as a tool for understanding the electrodynamics of the dust that contaminates the view of more distant objects. The polarization data is taken from the Heiles 2000 agglomeration catalog appended with data from the Berdyugin 2014 catalog. Here, the alignment of the polarization directions of a sample of stars well off the Galactic Disk is investigated with a recently devised test. The sample of 99 stars, located from Galactic longitude 15 degrees to 35 degrees and latitude 23 degrees to +35 degrees, is one of the more highly aligned regions among the many significantly aligned regions in the Galaxy. As determined by the Hub Test, the alignment occurs at the 20 sigma level, so chance alignment can be ruled out. The Hub Test's alignment function neatly separates the Celestial Sphere into four parts, two of alignment and two of avoidance, providing a full-sphere depiction of the collective alignment. This article is a Mathematica notebook which can be accessed via a currently viable link in the References.
Comments: 12 page paper plus 53 page Appendix of calculations, 22 figures, 16 references
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[v1] 2021-04-12 08:00:15
[v2] 2021-10-30 13:14:19
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