PROF. (DRA.) R. I. VILAPLANA CERDÁ

The light absorbed and scattered by small particles contains characteristic information about the physical and optical properties of these particles. An understanding of light scattering behaviour of spherical or non-spherical particles where the particles size ranges from nanometer to micrometer size are a vital requirement for investigating various physical characteristics (such as size, shape, refractive index etc.). The astronomical observations of cometary dust particles – intensity, degree of linear polarization and infrared emission – contain this information. Using scattering computational codes as instance Discrete Dipole Approximation (DDA) we can define a model that allows us to approach this problem. It is very helpful to compare these measurements and the model computational results with laboratory measurements of particles with analogous composition to cometary dust as well.