Negative polarization properties of regolith simulants

Spadaccia, S.; Patty, C. H. L.; Capelo, H. L.; Thomas, N.; Pommerol, A. (2022). Negative polarization properties of regolith simulants. Astronomy and astrophysics, 665, A49. EDP Sciences 10.1051/0004-6361/202243844

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Context. Polarization phase curves of asteroids and other small airless bodies are influenced by the compositional and physical properties of their regolith. The mixing of minerals composing the regolith influences the negative polarization at small phase angles because
it changes the multiple scattering properties of the medium.
Aims. This work aims to demonstrate experimentally how the mixing effect influences the polarization phase curve at small phase
angles for different mineralogies relevant for asteroids, and to determine how different aggregate sizes affect the negative polarization.
Methods. We prepared a set of binary and ternary mixtures with different common minerals on asteroids and one set of the same mixture with different aggregate sizes. We measured their reflected light at 530 nm with full Stokes polarimetry at phase angles ranging
from 0.8° to 30°.
Results. The mixing effect of the mixtures with both bright and dark minerals significantly changes the behavior of the phase curves
in terms of minimum polarization, phase angle of the minimum, and inversion angle with respect to the mineral components that
are mixed together. The changes in phase curve could explain the polarization observation of particular classes of asteroids (F and L
class) and other asteroids with peculiar polarization curves or photometric properties. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the negative
polarization is invariant to the presence of dust aggregates up to centimeter sizes.
Key words. polarization – techniques: polarimetric – minor planets, asteroids: general – planets and satellites: surfaces

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