3D radiative transfer code for polarized scattered light with aligned grains

We are working on a 3D Monte Carlo radiative transfer code which incorporates hierarchical grid structure (octree) and the full Stokes vector for both the incoming radiation and the radiation scattered by dust grains. The dust model can include different populations of dust, differing in composition, size distribution, shapes, and orientation. The non-spherical dust grains can be randomly aligned, or a fraction of them can be aligned with the magnetic fields (in particular, by the radiation field via radiative torques, RATs). The code will be a valuable tool in studying polarized scattered light from cometary comae in the solar system and from protoplanetary disks in the exoplanetary context.