THE OPTICAL POLARIZATION AND WARM ABSORBER IN IRAS-17020+4544

We report the detection of ionized absorption in the ASCA spectrum of the narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy IRAS 17020+4544. Subsequent optical s pectropolarimetry revealed high polarization increasing from 3% in the red to 5% in the blue, which indicates electron or dust scattering as a Likely origin. The broad emission line Ha is somewhat less polarize d than the continuum, which supports a location of the polarizing mate rial within the active galactic nucleus. The Balmer line decrement and reddened optical spectrum support the presence of a dusty warm absorb er in this object. We compared the broadband optical polarization and ionized X-ray absorption of a collection of Seyfert 1 and 1.5 galaxies , excluding classes of objects that are likely to have significant neu tral X-ray absorption. Warm absorber objects are generally more likely to have high optical polarization than objects with no detected ioniz ed absorption. This result lends additional support to the idea that t he warm absorber is associated with dust and implies either that dust transmission is responsible for at least part of the polarization or t hat the polarization is revealed because of the dimming of the optical spectrum. Spectropolarimetry of Seyfert 1 galaxies generally locates the scattering material inside the narrow-line region and often close to or within the broad-line region, consistent with estimates of the l ocation of the dusty warm absorber.