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We report spectropolarimetric observations obtained with the W.M. KeckTelescope of the high redshift z=1.824 aligned radio galaxy 3C256. Ourobservations confirm that the spatially extended UV continuum emission fromthis galaxy is polarized (P_V = 10.9% +/- 0.9%) with the electric vectorperpendicular to the aligned radio and optical major axes (PA = 48.0 +/- 2.4degrees). This strongly suggests that a significant fraction of the rest frameUV continuum emission from the galaxy is not starlight, but is insteadscattered light from a powerful AGN which is hidden from our direct view. Thenarrow emission lines, including MgII, are unpolarized. The percentagepolarization of the continuum emission and the polarization position angle areroughly constant as a function of wavelength. The present data do not permit usto discriminate between cool electrons and dust as the origin of thescattering. But scattering by hot (T > 10^7 K) electrons cannot be the dominantprocess, since such a population would overproduce X-ray emission. A largepopulation of cooler T ~ 10^4 K electrons could be responsible for both theline emission and the scattered light, but would require that the dust to gasratio in the scattering cones is 0.001 times smaller than that in our Galaxyand would imply that a large fraction of the baryonic mass in the galaxy is inthe ionized component of its ISM. Dust scattering is more efficient, but wouldresult in detectable extinction of the emission line spectrum unless the dustdistribution is more highly clumped than the line emitting gas. Finally, wedetect a strong (EW = 12A) broad (FWHM=6500 km/s) absorption line centered at1477A. We conclude that the most likely explanation is that the absorption isdue to a high velocity BAL cloud near the nucleus of 3C256.Comment: Uu-encoded compressed gzip tarfile containing 41 page LaTex file, 10  postscript figs, and AASTex style files. To appear in July 1, 1996 ApJ vol.  46

On the Origin of the Ultraviolet Continuum Emission from the High-Redshift Radio Galaxy 3C 256