NIR sources in the northeastern part of LMC

This catalog lists 1858 sources brighter than 14mag in the H band with a polarization signal-to-noise ratio greater than three in the J, H, or K_s_ bands. Based on the relationship between the extinction and the polarization degree, we argue that the polarization mostly arises from dichroic extinctions caused by local interstellar dust in the LMC.

This catalog allows us to map polarization structures to examine the global geometry of the local magnetic field, and to show a statistical analysis of the polarization of each field to understand its polarization properties. In the selected fields with coherent polarization position angles, we estimate magnetic field strengths in the range of 3-25{mu}G using the Chandrasekhar-Fermi method. This implies the presence of large-scale magnetic fields on a scale of around 100 parsecs.