Abstract

One of the hottest new topics within the ALMA community centers around polarization observations of protoplanetary disks.  I will discuss recent observations of polarization toward (mostly) evolved, Class II disks, and will give an overview of our rapidly evolving understanding of the multiple mechanisms that may (or may not) cause the polarization that we see.  In the case of my work on IM Lup (one of these Class II disks): consistent with some observations of other disks, the polarization at Bands 6 and 7 (1.3 mm and 850 microns) appears to be due to scattering by dust grains, thus complicating the search for magnetic fields in these sources.  While these results challenge our understanding of dust grain growth, they also have the potential to open up new windows into the dust-grain properties in young, planet-forming disks.