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SUMMARY:Star Formation and Planets - some unusual results from Astronomica
 l Polarimetry - Philip Lucas (University of Hertfordshire)
DTSTART:20080617T153000Z
DTEND:20080617T163000Z
UID:TALK11643@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Jane Buckle
DESCRIPTION:I discuss two recent results from the group at Hertfordshire t
 hat\nhave the common theme of getting the most out of your photons via\nhi
 gh precision polarimetry. The first (shorter) project\, is the\nmeasuremen
 t of the helical magnetic field structure around the outflow\nfrom the mas
 sive protostar HH135/136 via imaging circular polarimetry\nat 1 arcsec res
 olution. This result provided a sneak preview of what\nwe will learn from 
 ALMA at even finer resolution and was recently published in Nature. The se
 cond project is the attempt to detect\nextrasolar planets in reflected lig
 ht with Planetpol\, a private\ninstrument built at Herts. This project has
  pushed the boundaries\nof polarimetric precision by nearly 2 orders of ma
 gntitude\, achieving\nsensitivity to fractional polarisations of 1 part pe
 r million. Despite this\, we have no positive detectons yet\, and I discus
 s why in the\ncontext of the recent positive polarimetric detection claime
 d for\nHD189733b. 
LOCATION:Ryle Seminar Room\, Cavendish Laboratory
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