Cool Stars 14 - Submitted Abstract # 339
This version created on 05 October 2006

Probing Interstellar Dust With The TPF-Coronagraph


Neal Turner, JPL
James Breckinridge, JPL
Keith Grogan, JPL

We show that TPF-C has the potential to detect the light scattered by
interstellar grains along lines of sight passing near stars in our
Galaxy.  In the simple case of uniformly distributed dust, the
relative brightness of the scattered light halo at a fixed angular
offset from the star increases in proportion to the distance.  The
halo is observable around stars beyond about 100  parsecs and is
expected to have little effect on the detection of planets around
stars nearer the Sun.  The color of the scattered light provides
information on the compositions and sizes of the grains, while for
Sun-like stars at about 1 kpc the structure of the halo may reveal the
strength of the stellar wind.  

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