Magnetic resonance imaging at microtesla fields is a promising imaging method that combines the pre-polarization technique and broadband signal reception by superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) sensors to enable in vivo MRI at microtesla-range magnetic fields similar in strength to the Earth magnetic field. Despite significant advances in recent years, the potential of microtesla...

Since the opacity of a magnetized plasma depends on polarization of radiation, the radiation emergent from atmospheres of neutron stars with strong magnetic fields is expected to be strongly polarized. The degree of linear polarization, typically ∼ 10− 30%, depends on photon energy, effective temperature and magnetic field. The spectrum of polarization is more sensitive to the magnetic field th...

February 5, 2008 Two sets of data show that small interstellar grains captured in interstellar magnetic fields, → BIS, draped over the heliosphere appear to polarize the light of nearby stars. The polarizing grains couple to → BIS, while larger grains couple to the cloud velocity. The maximum polarization direction, Pmax, is offset in ecliptic longitude by ∆λ ∼ +35 from the upwind direction, an...

Here we report on the first detection of circular polarization in molecular lines formed in cool magnetic regions (starspots) and in chromospheric emission lines formed in hot plages on the surfaces of active stars. Our survey of G-K-M stars included young main-sequence dwarfs and RS CVn-type giants and subgiants. All stars were found to possess surface magnetic fields producing Stokes V LSD si...

Galvanotaxis, that is, migration induced by DC electric fields, is thought to play a significant role in development and wound healing, however, the mechanisms by which extrinsic electric fields orchestrate intrinsic motility responses are unknown. Using mammalian cell lines (3T3, HeLa, and CHO cells), we tested one prevailing hypothesis, namely, that electric fields polarize charged cell surfa...

This paper reviews some of the developments that over the last 10 years have allowed us to go from deciphering the physical origin of several of the enigmatic features of the second solar spectrum to discovering unknown aspects of the Sun’s hidden magnetism via sophisticated radiative transfer modeling. The second solar spectrum is the observational signature of radiatively induced quantum cohe...

Intracluster magnetic fields with ∼ μG strength induce Faraday rotation on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization. Measurements of this effect can potentially probe the detailed structure of intracluster magnetic fields across clusters, since the CMB polarization is a continuously varying field on the sky, in contrast to the conventional method restricted by the limited number of ra...

The Chapter is devoted to consideration of metrological aspects of intrinsically interconnected characteristics of light fields, such as intensity, polarization and coherence. Conceptually, all these quantities are derived from the Wolf’s coherency matrix [1]. However, new insight on interconnection of them is provided by the novel singular-optical approach [2, 3] predicting existence of import...

We introduce a probability distribution for polarization of three-dimensional quantum light fields as a marginal of the quadrature Q function for a three-mode field by removing the variables irrelevant for polarization stotal intensity and global phased. The probability distribution turns out to be determined by projection on SUs3d coherent states. We introduce a degree of polarization as the d...

Water maser polarization observations in the precessing jet of W43A have revealed that it is magnetically collimated. Here we present a detailed description of the physical properties of the water maser environment in the jet. We discuss the maser saturation level and beaming angle as well as the intrinsic temperatures and densities. Additionally, we show that the polarization angle of the stro...