NEAR-INFRARED CIRCULAR POLARIMETRY AND CORRELATION DIAGRAMS IN THE ORION BECKLIN-NEUGEBAUER/KLEINMAN-LOW REGION: CONTRIBUTION OF DICHROIC EXTINCTION

We present a deep circular polarization (CP) image of the Orion Becklin-Neugebauer (BN)/Kleinman-Low (KL) nebula in the Ks band and correlations of CP, linear polarization (LP), and H – Ks color representing extinction. The CP image clearly reveals the quadrupolar structure around the massive star IRc2, rather than BN. H – Ks color is well correlated with CP. A simple relation between dichroic extinction, color excess, CP, and LP is derived. The observed correlation between the Stokes parameters and the color excess agrees with the derived relation, and suggests a major contribution of dichroic extinction to the production of CP in this region, indicating the wide existence of aligned grains.