Systematic variations in the wavelength dependence of interstellar linear polarization

New observations of the wavelength dependence of interstellar linear polarization [p(λ)] made to investigate the influence of the environment on the effective size distribution of the aligned polarizing particles are presented. Optical and infrared measurements were obtained simultaneously in eight photometric passbands between U and K, giving a coherent data set for a total of 105 reddened stars. The p(λ) data were modeled using the usual Serkowski relation with three parameters: p max , λ max , and K