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Discovery Of Polarization Reverberation In Ngc 4151, C. Martin Gaskell, René W. Goosmann, Nelly I. Merkulova, Nikolay M. Shakhovskoy, Masatoshi Shoji

C. Martin Gaskell Publications

Observations of the optical polarization of NGC 4151 in 1997–2003 show variations of an order of magnitude in the polarized flux while the polarization position angle remains constant. The amplitude of variability of the polarized flux is comparable to the amplitude of variability of the total U-band flux, except that the polarized flux follows the total flux with a lag of 8±3 days. The time lag and the constancy of the position angle strongly favor a scattering origin for the variable polarization rather than a non-thermal synchrotron origin. The orientation of the position angle of the polarized flux (parallel to …