Evidence of Two-Component Optical Polarization in Blazar 1ES 1959+650

In this work we present an analysis of the optical polarimetric variability of the TeV-blazar 1 ES 1959+650 from 2007 October 18 to 2011 May 5. The source showed a maximum variation of 1.2 mag in R-band, and a maximum polarization degree of 12.2%. The blazar presented a preferential position angle of the optical polarization of similar to 153 degrees, with variations of 10 degrees-50 degrees, which is in agreement with the projected position angle of the parsec-scale jet found at 43 GHz. We infer the existence of the two optically thin synchrotron components that contribute to the polarized flux, consistent with the spine-sheath model. One of them is stable with a constant polarization degree of 4%. Assuming a stationary shock, we estimated some parameters associated with the physics of the relativistic jet: the Doppler factor of delta(D) similar to 23, the viewing angle of the jet of Phi similar to 2 degrees.4, and the size of the emission region of r(b) similar to 5.6 x 10(17) cm.