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Variability can be the pathway to understanding the physical processes in astrophysical jets. However, the high-cadence observations required to test particle acceleration models are still missing. Here we report on the first attempt to produce continuous, > 24 hour polarization light curves of blazars using telescopes distributed across the globe, following the rotation of the Earth, to avoid the rising Sun. Our campaign involved 16 telescopes in Asia, Europe, and North America. We observed BL Lacertae and CGRaBS J0211+1051 for a combined 685 telescope hours. We find large variations in the polarization degree and angle for both sources on sub-hour timescales as well as a ∼180° rotation of the polarization angle in CGRaBS J0211+1051 in less than two days. We compared our high-cadence observations to particle-in-cell magnetic reconnection and turbulent plasma simulations. We find that although the state-of-the-art simulation frameworks can produce a large fraction of the polarization properties, they do not account for the entirety of the observed polarization behavior in blazar jets. 

We present optical and near-infrared stellar polarization observations toward the dark filamentary clouds associated with IC5146. The data allow us to investigate the dust properties (this paper) and the magnetic field structure (Paper II). A total of 2022 background stars were detected in the R c , I\prime , H, and/or K bands to {A}V≲ 25 mag. The ratio of the polarization percentage at different wavelengths provides an estimate of {λ }\max , the wavelength of the peak polarization, which is an indicator of the small-size cutoff of the grain size distribution. The grain size distribution seems to significantly change at {A}V˜ 3 mag, where both the average and dispersion of {P}{Rc}/{P}H decrease. In addition, we found {λ }\max ˜ 0.6{--}0.9 μm for {A}V> 2.5 mag, which is larger than the ˜0.55 μm in the general interstellar medium (ISM), suggesting that grain growth has already started in low-A V regions. Our data also reveal that polarization efficiency ({PE}\equiv {P}λ /{A}V) decreases with A V as a power law in the R c , I\prime , and K bands with indices of -0.71 ± 0.10, -1.23 ± 0.10, and -0.53 ± 0.09. However, H-band data show a power index change; the PE varies with A V steeply (index of -0.95 ± 0.30) when {A}V< 2.88+/- 0.67 mag, but softly (index of -0.25 ± 0.06) for greater A V values. The soft decay of PE in high-A V regions is consistent with the radiative alignment torque model, suggesting that our data trace the magnetic field to {A}V˜ 20 mag. Furthermore, the breakpoint found in the H band is similar to that for A V , where we found the {P}{Rc}/{P}H dispersion significantly decreased. Therefore, the flat PE-A V in high-A V regions implies that the power-index changes result from additional grain growth.