Optical and Thermal Properties of Zodiacal Dust

Abstract

Recent progress has been reported in the determination of the zodiacal thermal emission, brightness and polarization. These results, of interest to estimate the foreground sources in astrophysical observations, do not provide immediately information on the dust distribution, and on its optical and thermal properties. To infer local information about the bulk density, and the physical properties of the dust particles, it is necessary to compare the observations with realistic models or to invert the line-of-sight data. The latter approach typically suggests that the bulk density is (in the symmetry plane) inversely proportional to the solar distance, that the particles are not spheroidal, but rather irregular in shape, that their physical properties change with their distance to the Sun and their orbital inclination, and finally that they do not emit like a blackbody. The heterogeneity noticed in the cloud is due to various sources of dust particles, the size, shape or albedo of which evolve as a function of time, under collision and/or evaporation processes.