Optical and NIR polarimetry in Taurus

The size distribution of the aligned-grain population can be constrained by measurements of the wavelength dependence of the polarization. The leading physical model for producing the alignment is that of radiative alignment torques (RATs), which predicts that the most efficiently aligned grains are those with sizes larger than the wavelengths of light composing the local radiation field.

Therefore, for a given grain-size distribution, the wavelength at which the polarization reaches a maximum ({lambda}_max_) should correlate with the characteristic reddening along the line of sight between the dust grains and the illumination source. A correlation between {lambda}_max_ and reddening has been previously established for extinctions up to A_V_~4mag. We extend the study of this relationship to a larger sample of stars in the Taurus cloud complex, including extinctions A_V_>10mag.