Multicolor Polarimetry of the Dust Disk Candidate BD +31 deg 643

摘要

The tentative detection of a dust disk around the main-sequence star BD +31 deg 643 was recently announced by Kalas & Jewitt and represents only the second such object ever to be imaged. Here, we present multiband visual polarimetry of this object. Our single-aperture polarimetry also strongly suggests the presence of a disk. We find that the poles of the disk are oriented parallel to the polar- zation of the majority of background sources in the region and, hence, probably to the magnetic field in the cloud, as would be expected from star formation theory. The polarization observed toward BD +31 deg 643 can be modeled as a combination of Rayleigh scattering from material in the polar regions of the disk and a term due to the disk itself.