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The optical and near-infrared (OIR) polarization of starlight is typicallyunderstood to arise from the dichroic extinction of that light by dust grainswhose axes are aligned with respect to a local magnetic-field. The sizedistribution of the aligned-grain population can be constrained by measurementsof the wavelength dependence of the polarization. The leading physical modelfor producing the alignment is radiative alignment-torques (RAT), whichpredicts that the most efficiently aligned grains are those with sizes largerthan the wavelengths of light composing the local radiation field. Therefore,for a given grain-size distribution, the wavelength at which the polarizationreaches a maximum ($\lambda_\mathrm{max}$) should correlate with thecharacteristic reddening along the line of sight between the dust grains andthe illumination source. A correlation between $\lambda_\mathrm{max}$ andreddening has been previously established for extinctions up to $A_V\approx4$mag. We extend the study of this relationship to a larger sample of stars inthe Taurus cloud complex, including extinctions $A_V>10$ mag. We confirm theearlier results for $A_V<4$ mag, but find that the $\lambda_\mathrm{max}$ vs.$A_V$ relationship bifurcates above $A_V\approx4$ mag, with part of the samplecontinuing the previously observed relationship and the remaining partexhibiting a significantly steeper rise. We propose that the data exhibitingthe steep rise represent lines-of-sight towards high density "clumps," wheregrain coagulation has taken place. We present RAT-based modeling supportingthese hypotheses. These results indicate that multi-band OIR polarimetry is apowerful tool for tracing grain growth in molecular clouds, independent ofuncertainties in the dust temperature and emissivity.

Probing Interstellar Grain Growth Through Polarimetry in the Taurus Cloud Complex