Polarization Studies of Comet C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR)

Abstract

Linear polarization observations were carried out on comet C/2000 WM1 with the 1.2m telescope at Mt. Abu Observatory during November 2001 and March 2002. The observations in November were at low phase angle ($<~22\degr$) when the polarization is negative and where the data for most of the comets are rather meager. The observations during March were made when the phase angle was $\sim$ 47\degr. Observations were conducted through the IHW narrow band and BVR broad band filters. Based on these polarization observations we infer that the comet C/2000 WM1 belongs to high polarization class i.e. the dusty comet family.