Abstract

We performed experiments to study the extinction, scattering, and polarization of light by ensembles of fractal dust aggregates that consist of spherical monomers large compared with the wavelength. Extinction was measured on a homogeneous dust cloud. Scattering and polarization were measured on a collimated dust beam. We found that polarization and extinction are determined only by a small size scale that is defined by a monomer and its closest neighbors in an aggregate. The scattering function might also depend on the overall size of the aggregate or the total number of monomers in an aggregate.

© 2002 Optical Society of America

Experimental test of the Rayleigh-Debye-Gans theory for light scattering by fractal aggregates

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