This thesis reviews the role of emotions in one’s choice of information, information processing, and political attitudes. Theoretical and empirical endeavors to date have focused primarily on how emotions influence attitudes and information processing, leaving the actual processes guiding these outcomes in the margins. Specifically, it has been largely unexplored how emotions influence individuals’ information search behavior and then attitudes and information processing. Noting that the purposeful selection of likeminded information, often referred to as selective exposure, is commonly enacted when an individual first initiates information processing, and is also likely influenced by emotions, this study explores how emotions may affect people’s tendency to seek out congruent information. In addition, this study examines how the relationship between emotions and selective exposure in turn may affect aspects of information processing and attitudes. By designing an online experiment, I first tested how certain negative emotions (anger/fear) affected one’s pursuit of certain types of information (consistent/inconsistent) and second, I investigated how these emotions and information selections influenced subsequent information processing and attitudes. Results showed that while anger motivated more likeminded exposure for Republicans than fear, fear promoted more likeminded exposure for Democrats than anger. Further, anger prompted people to process messages more closely and to develop more polarized attitudes compared to fear. In addition, pro-attitudinal exposure produced more message-relevant thoughts for Republicans than counter-attitudinal message exposure, while it was counter-attitudinal exposure that yielded more message-relevant thoughts for Democrats. No such effect, however, was shown for attitudinal polarization. / text

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This thesis concerns polarization mode dispersion (PMD) in optical fiber communications. Specifically, we study fiber birefringence, PMD stochastic properties, PMD mitigation and the interaction of fiber birefringence and fiber nonlinearity. Fiber birefringence is the physical origin of polarization mode dispersion. Current models of birefringence in optical fibers assume that the birefringence vector varies randomly either in orientation with a fixed magnitude or simultaneously in both magnitude and direction. These models are applicable only to certain birefringence profiles. For a broader range of birefringence profiles, we propose and investigate four general models in which the stochastically varying amplitude is restricted to a limited range. In addition, mathematical algorithms are introduced for the numerical implementation of these models. To investigate polarization mode dispersion, we first apply these models to single mode fibers. In particular, two existing models and our four more general models are employed for the evolution of optical fiber birefringence with longitudinal distance to analyze, both theoretically and numerically, the behavior of the polarization mode dispersion. We find that while the probability distribution function of the differential group delay (DGD) varies along the fiber length as in existing models, the dependence of the mean DGD on fiber length differs noticeably from earlier predictions. Fiber spinning reduces polarization mode dispersion effects in optical fibers. Since relatively few studies have been performed of the dependence of the reduction factor on the strength of random background birefringence fluctuations, we here apply a general birefringence model to sinusoidal spun fibers. We find that while, as expected, the phase matching condition is not affected by random perturbations, the degree of PMD reduction as well as the probability distribution function of the DGD are both influenced by the random components of the birefringence. Together with other researchers, I have also examined a series of experimentally realizable procedures to compensate for PMD in optical fiber systems. This work demonstrates that a symmetric ordering of compensator elements combined with Taylor and Chebyshev approximations to the transfer matrix for the light polarization in optical fibers can significantly widen the compensation bandwidth. In the last part of the thesis, we applied the Manakov-PMD equation and a general model of fiber birefringence to investigate pulse distortion induced by the interaction of fiber birefringence and fiber nonlinearity. We find that the effect of nonlinearity on the pulse distortion differs markedly with the birefringence profile.

The Zero Degree Calorimeter at STAR was used to calculate an asymmetry from small-angle scattering of neutral particles from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 500 GeV. An energy-centroid method was used to define hit positions of the neutral particles for each Shower Maximum Detector plane. An angular asymmetry analysis was done using these positions to measure both a left-right and a top-bottom asymmetry. The asymmetries were then used to calculate transversely-normal and sideways beam-polarization components for both of RHIC’s polarized-proton beams. The results of this analysis show that the Zero Degree Calorimeter Shower Maximum Detectors can be used as effective polarimeters at high beam energies, and can check the functionality of the spin rotators for longitudinally-polarized beams. The results of this analysis will be used in measurements that further the understanding of the source of a proton’s spin. / Department of Physics and Astronomy

This work does not limit itself to its title and touches on a number of related topics beyond it. Starting with the title, Polarization Aberrations of Optical Coatings, the immediate question that comes to mind is: what coatings? All coatings? Not all coatings, but just enough that a third person could take this information and apply it anywhere: to all coatings. The computational work-flow required to break-down the aberrations caused by polarizing events (3D vector forms of reflection and refraction) in dielectric and absorbing materials and for thick and thin films is presented. Therefore, it is completely general and of interest to the wide optics community. The example system is a Ritchey-Chrétien telescope. It looks very similar to a Cassegrain, but it is not. It has hyperbolic surfaces, which allows for more optical aberration corrections. A few modern systems that use this configuration are the Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck telescopes. This particular system is a follow-up on this publication, where an example Cassegrain with aluminum coatings is characterized, and I was asked to simply evaluate it at another wavelength. To my surprise, I found a number of issues which lead me to write a completely new, one-of-its-kind 3D polarization ray-tracing code. It can do purely geometrical ray-tracing with add-on the polarization analysis capability, and more importantly: it keeps your data at your fingertips while offering all the outstanding facilities of Mathematica. The ray-tracing code and its extensive library, which can do several advanced computations, is documented in the appendix. The coatings of the Ritchey-Chrétien induce a number of aberrations, primarily, but not limited to: tilt, defocus, astigmatism, and coma. I found those forms to exist in both aluminum and with a reflectance-enhancing dielectric quarter-wave multilayer coating over aluminum. The thickness of the film stack varies as function of position to present a quarter-wave of optical thickness to oblique rays. Most commercial optical software that I know cannot compute this. And the results are impressive: the scalar transmission, which is a measure of ray efficiency, was raised from 78% to 95%. This means that only 5% of the incident light is lost, assuming ideal coating interfaces. This is very advantageous, considering the application: coronagraphs for exoplanet detection. Exoplanets are very far away, and therefore efficient use of light is essential. I also created a ray! I call it Huygens' twin ray. It is credited to Christiaan Huygens, who postulated that points on a wavefront can be considered as a sources of secondary spherical wavelets. This concept normally belongs to physical optics. The twin ray is emitted from the exact same object point but traced in a slightly different direction, which can be assumed by invoking Huygens's principle, and defined in a special way that consistently prevents vignetting. This requires high-precision ray-tracing, which is introduced along with this thesis work as part of the appendix. The application of this concept is exemplified in finding the exit pupil of the Ritchey-Chrétien telescope. It can be modified to work in a plurality of cases and find the precise image location in three-dimensions, making it completely general and useful. Mastering the ray-tracing documented here depends on how much optics the user knows, but tracing a single ray is something that can be learned in minutes. I welcome you to freely use it and make it your own. If your goal is to learn to ray-trace in Mathematica, the reader is directed to the appendix, especially to the four-port polarimeter example, as it is a 3D system that contains both reflection and refraction through thin films, thick films, retarders, and a single surface is traced at a time!

Under the conditions of quasitransverse propagation of electromagnetic waves in a magnetoionic plasma, the effect analogous to Faraday rotation in the quasilongítudinal case (which we will call Faraday pulsation) can produce a large elliptical polarization of originally linearly polarized radiation. Therefore, the presence of elliptical polarization in the radiation cannot serve as a means for distinguishing between a synchrotron mechanism with high energy electrons and any other type of emission process in radio sources in which conditions suggesting quasi - transverse propagation (large magnetic fields) may take place. The Faraday pulsation has a wavelength dependence through which it can be identified.

We present spectropolarimetric observations of the nearby Type Ia supernova SN 2014J in M82 over six epochs: +0, +7, +23, +51, +77, +109, and +111 days with respect to B-band maximum. The strong continuum polarization, which is constant with time, shows a wavelength dependence unlike that produced by linear dichroism in Milky Way dust. The observed polarization may be due entirely to interstellar dust or include a circumstellar scattering component. We find that the polarization angle aligns with the magnetic field of the host galaxy, arguing for an interstellar origin. Additionally, we confirm a peak in polarization at short wavelengths that would imply R-V < 2 along the light of sight, in agreement with earlier polarization measurements. For illustrative purposes, we include a two-component fit to the continuum polarization of our +51-day epoch that combines a circumstellar scattering component with interstellar dust where scattering can account for over half of the polarization at 4000 angstrom. Upon removal of the interstellar polarization signal, SN 2014J exhibits very low levels of continuum polarization. Asymmetries in the distribution of elements within the ejecta are visible through moderate levels of time-variable polarization in accordance with the Si II lambda 6355 absorption line. At maximum light, the line polarization reaches similar to 0.6% and decreases to similar to 0.4% 1 week later. This feature also forms a loop on theqRSP-uRSP plane, illustrating that the ion does not have an axisymmetric distribution. The observed polarization properties suggest that the explosion geometry of SN 2014J is generally spheroidal with a clumpy distribution of silicon.

A method to calculate the Stokes parameters Q, U, as well as angle of polarization (AoP) from the new generation CIMEL Dual-Polar sun/sky radiometer CE318-DP polarized skylight measurements is developed in this thesis. Besides the degree of linear polarization (DoLP) and the total radiance I, the parameters Q, U, and AoP have much potential to improve retrievals of aerosol microphysical and chemical properties. However, they have not been derived based on the CE318-DP so far because they change with the reference plane that is hard to know due to an uncontrolled initial angle related to installation of the optical sensor head to the automated mount of this type of instrument. In this work, the polarization pattern of skylight with the direction of polarization perpendicular to the scattering plane (i.e., the principal plane in the solar principal plane geometry) is applied to correct the initial angle and then to obtained Q, U, and AoP. The perpendicular and parallel polarized radiances Ir and Il, as well as the linear depolarization ratio ρ are further derived after Q is known. A new polarized almucantar geometry based on CE318-DP is measured to illustrate abundant variation features of these parameters. These new polarization parameters in conjunction with DoLP and I are analyzed based on some typical long-term sites within the Sun/sky-radiometer Observation NETwork (SONET) and a joint site of the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) in China. Results calculated in this work are consistent with previous results, and generally comparable with the vector radiative transfer simulations and the measurements by other polarimetric instrument. Considering a 1°discrepancy of AoP, 3% fractional uncertainty in I and 0.005 uncertainty in DoLP propagated to Q and U, the uncertainties of Q in both of solar principal and almucantar planes and that of U in the almucantar geometry are acceptable.

Debris discs are typically revealed through the presence of excess emission at infrared wavelengths. Most discs exhibit excess at mid- and far-infrared wavelengths, analogous to the solar system's Asteroid and Edgeworth-Kuiper belts. Recently, stars with strong (similar to 1%) excess at near-infrared wavelengths were identified through interferometric measurements. Using the HIgh Precision Polarimetric Instrument, we examined a sub-sample of these hot dust stars (and appropriate controls) at parts-per-million sensitivity in SDSS g' (green) and r' (red) filters for evidence of scattered light. No detection of strongly polarized emission from the hot dust stars is seen. We, therefore, rule out scattered light from a normal debris disk as the origin of this emission. A wavelength-dependent contribution from multiple dust components for hot dust stars is inferred from the dispersion (the difference in polarization angle in red and green) of southern stars. Contributions of 17 ppm (green) and 30 ppm (red) are calculated, with strict 3-sigma upper limits of 76 and 68 ppm, respectively. This suggests weak hot dust excesses consistent with thermal emission, although we cannot rule out contrived scenarios, e.g., dust in a spherical shell or face-on discs. We also report on the nature of the local interstellar medium (ISM), obtained as a byproduct of the control measurements. Highlights include the first measurements of the polarimetric color of the local ISM and the discovery of a southern sky region with a polarization per distance thrice the previous maximum. The data suggest that lambda(max), the wavelength of maximum polarization, is bluer than typical.