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A Monte Carlo Model for Light Scattering by Dark Nebulae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2016

M. I. Darby ,
D. J. King  and
K. N. R. Taylor
M. I. Darby
Affiliation:
school of Physics, University of New South Wales
D. J. King
Affiliation:
school of Physics, University of New South Wales
K. N. R. Taylor
Affiliation:
school of Physics, University of New South Wales
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Extract

The Thumbprint Nebula (TPN) in Chamaeleon (first described by Fitzgerald (1974), and shown in Figure 1) is a good example of the class of dense, dark nebulae that exhibit dark cores and bright rims, and have been referred to (Lynds 1967) as ‘bright dark nebulae’. Early observations of these nebulae established that the dust grains within them were strongly forward-scattering (Struve and Elvey 1936, Struve 1937). However, the treatment of the radiative transfer problem was too inadequate to permit more than tentative conclusions regarding the nebulae. In more recent years, with the advent of modern computers, the transfer of radiation through a dust cloud has been treated more rigorously, using Monte Carlo techniques (Mattila 1970, Witt and Stephens 1974). Witt and Stephens (1974) have demonstrated that for a dense nebula the surface brightness profile is sensitive to the dust grain density distribution within the cloud and to the scattering properties of the grains. The scattering model approach can be valuable in the investigation of very opaque dark nebulae that cannot be studied by conventional star counting techniques. This has been demonstrated in the case of the TPN by Fitzgerald et al (1976), who used the Witt and Stephens model.

Type
Contributions
Information
Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia , Volume 3 , Issue 5 , 1979 , pp. 312 - 315
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 1979

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References

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