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Polarization and Extent of Maser Emission from Late-Type Stars: Support for a Plasma Turbulence Model of Maser Production
The integrated spectrum of OH emission from late-type stars is often
circularly polarized, by as much as 50% in some cases. While the spectra are
partially polarized, the individual maser components revealed by VLBI are much
more so. Using VLBI observations of late-type stars from the literature, we
show that the difference in circular polarization between main lines correlates
with a difference in angular extent for a given object. This is a natural
result if turbulent magnetic fields are causing the masers to be polarized via
the Cook mechanism, and might serve as a good diagnostic for determining which
objects should be investigated in the search for magnetic fields around evolved
stars.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figs ApJL, accepte
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