Zero-polarization candidate regions Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Mandarakas N.
  2. Panopoulou G.V.
  3. Pelgrims V.
  4. Potter S.B.
  5. Pavlidou V.,Ramaprakash A.
  6. Tassis K.
  7. Blinov D.
  8. Kiehlmann S.
  9. Koutsiona E.,Maharana S.
  10. Romanopoulos S.
  11. Skalidis R.
  12. Vervelaki A.
  13. Clark S.E.,Kypriotakis J.A.
  14. Readhead A.C.S.
  15. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

The calibration of optical polarimeters relies on the use of stars with negligible polarization (i.e., unpolarized standard stars) for determining the instrumental polarization zero point. For wide-field polarimeters, calibration is often done by imaging the same star over multiple positions in the field of view (FoV), which is a time-consuming process. A more effective technique is to target fields containing multiple standard stars. While this method has been used for fields with highly polarized stars, there are no such sky regions with well measured unpolarized standard stars. We aim to identify sky regions with tens of stars exhibiting negligible polarization that are suitable for a zero-point calibration of wide-field polarimeters. We selected stars in regions with extremely low reddening, located at high Galactic latitudes. We targeted four ~40'x40' fields in the northern and eight in the southern equatorial hemispheres. Observations were carried out at the Skinakas Observatory and the South African Astronomical Observatory. Results. We found two fields in the north and seven in the south characterized by a mean polarization lower than p<0.1%. At least 9 out of the 12 fields can be used for a zero-point calibration of wide-field polarimeters.

Keywords
  1. interstellar-medium
  2. polarimetry
  3. infrared-astronomy
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2024A&A...684A.132M
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/684/A132
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/684/A132

Access

Web browser access HTML
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/684/A132
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/684/A132
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/684/A132
IVOA Table Access TAP
http://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tap
Run SQL-like queries with TAP-enabled clients (e.g., TOPCAT).
IVOA Cone Search SCS
For use with a cone search client (e.g., TOPCAT).
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/684/A132/catalog?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/684/A132/catalog?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/684/A132/catalog?

History

2024-04-12T07:43:38Z
Resource record created
2024-04-12T07:43:38Z
Created
2024-08-12T09:13:04Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr