Next Contents Previous

3.2.3. Microwave Emission: Spinning Dust Grains

A number of physical processes including collisions with neutral atoms and ions, plasma drag, absorption and emission of photons can drive ultrasmall grains to rapidly rotate (Draine & Lazarian 1998a, 1998b; Draine & Li 2002). The electric dipole emission from these spinning dust grains was shown to be able to account for the 10-100 GHz "anomalous" Galactic background component (See Draine & Lazarian 1998b and references therein).