New opportunities for astronomical polarimetry

Polarimetry has played an important role in many areas of astronomy, through the direct production of polarized flux in synchrotron and cyclotron radiation and the polarized emission from a medium of aligned dust grains (dichroic emission), and its production in secondary processes such as scattering and selective absorption in a medium of aligned grains (dichroic absorption). Future polarimetry at optical and infrared wavelengths, with the new generation of large telescopes and the use of adaptive optics, will provide important advances from the nearby universe to very high redshifts.