FIRST NEAR-INFRARED CIRCULAR POLARIZATION SURVEY

Polarimetry is an important tool for studying the physical processes in the interstellar medium, including star-forming regions. Polarimetry of young stellar objects and their circumstellar structures provides invaluable information about distributions of matter and configurations of magnetic fields in their environments. However, only a few near-infrared circular polarization (CP) observations were reported so far (before our survey). A systematic near-infrared CP survey has been firstly conducted in various star-forming regions, covering high-mass, intermediate-mass, and low-mass young stellar objects. All the observations were made using the SIRPOL imaging polarimeter on the Infrared Survey Facility (IRSF) 1.4 m telescope at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO). In this presentation, we present the first CP survey results. The polarization patterns, extents, and maximum degrees of circular and linear polarizations are used to determine the prevalence and origin of CP in the star-forming regions. Our results are explained with a combination of circumstellar scattering and dichroic extinction mechanism generating the high degrees of CP in star-forming regions. The universality of the large and extended CPs in star-formaing regions can also be linked with the origin of homochirality of life.