A Model for the Infrared Polarization of NGC 1068

Abstract

We present a method for calculating the polarization due to absorption and emission by aligned grains distributed in a disk or a torus. The temperature distribution in the torus is calculated self-consistently with the axially symmetric radiative transfer code of Efstathiou & Rowan-Robinson (1990, 1995). The polarization patterns predicted for models that provide good fits to the spectral energy distributions of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) show a flip in position angle in the infrared. This effect has already been observed in the case of NGC 1068. We show that the model of Efstathiou et al. (1995) for the torus in NGC 1068 is consistent with the observed polarization pattern.