scholarly journals Detecting magnetic fields in large-scale structure with radio polarization

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (S259) ◽  
pp. 669-670 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shea Brown ◽  
Lawrence Rudnick ◽  
Damon Farnsworth

AbstractWe present our attempts to detect magnetic fields in filamentary large-scale structure (LSS) by observing polarized synchrotron emission emitted by structure formation shocks. Little is known about the strength and order of magnetic fields beyond the largest clusters of galaxies, and synchrotron emission holds enormous promise as a means of probing magnetic fields in these low density regions. We report on observations taken at the Green Bank Telescope which reveal a possible Mpc extension to the Coma cluster relic. We also highlight the major obstacle that diffuse galactic foreground emission poses for any search for large-scale, low surface-brightness extragalactic emission. Finally we explore cross-correlation of diffuse radio emission with optical tracers of LSS as a means to statistically detecting magnetic fields in the presence of this confounding foreground emission.

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dai G. Yamazaki ◽  
Kiyotomo Ichiki ◽  
Toshitaka Kajino ◽  
Grant J. Mathews

Magnetic fields are everywhere in nature, and they play an important role in every astronomical environment which involves the formation of plasma and currents. It is natural therefore to suppose that magnetic fields could be present in the turbulent high-temperature environment of the big bang. Such a primordial magnetic field (PMF) would be expected to manifest itself in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies, and also in the formation of large-scale structure. In this paper, we summarize the theoretical framework which we have developed to calculate the PMF power spectrum to high precision. Using this formulation, we summarize calculations of the effects of a PMF which take accurate quantitative account of the time evolution of the cutoff scale. We review the constructed numerical program, which is without approximation, and an improvement over the approach used in a number of previous works for studying the effect of the PMF on the cosmological perturbations. We demonstrate how the PMF is an important cosmological physical process on small scales. We also summarize the current constraints on the PMF amplitudeBλand the power spectral indexnBwhich have been deduced from the available CMB observational data by using our computational framework.


1987 ◽  
Vol 124 ◽  
pp. 335-348
Author(s):  
Neta A. Bahcall

The evidence for the existence of very large scale structures, ∼ 100h−1Mpc in size, as derived from the spatial distribution of clusters of galaxies is summarized. Detection of a ∼ 2000 kms−1 elongation in the redshift direction in the distribution of the clusters is also described. Possible causes of the effect are peculiar velocities of clusters on scales of 10–100h−1Mpc and geometrical elongation of superclusters. If the effect is entirely due to the peculiar velocities of clusters, then superclusters have masses of order 1016.5M⊙ and may contain a larger amount of dark matter than previously anticipated.


1977 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. M. Lewis

Rich clusters of galaxies are a common feature of the large-scale structure of the Universe. Those studied so far, show striking regularities with (a)a smooth radial gradient of number density.(b)’isothermal’ distributions, which according to Bahcall (1975) have a scatter of only ±15% in the size of their characteristic core radii.(c)their limiting structural diameters are ~50 Mpc (cf. Abell, 1975), if they are identified with superclusters.(d)the magnitude of the velocity dispersion about their centres is generally 600-1000 km s-1, and the velocities are cpnsistent with a gaussian distribution (Yahil and Vidal, 1976; also Faber and Dressier, 1976).(e)The extreme velocities are generally within ±3000 km s-1, and for Coma are ∼2400 km s-1 (Tifft and Gregory, 1976).(f)elliptical galaxies tend to predominate near the centre, spirals in the surrounding loose groups.


1980 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 699-714 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neta A. Bahcall

AbstractClusters and groups of galaxies contain the majority of galaxies in the universe. The rich clusters, while less numerous than the many poor groups, are the densest and largest systems known, and can be easily recognized and studied even at relatively large distances. Their study is important for understanding the formation and evolution of clusters and galaxies, and for a determination of the large-scale structure in the universe.


2006 ◽  
Vol 642 (1) ◽  
pp. L1-L4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail V. Medvedev ◽  
Luis O. Silva ◽  
Marc Kamionkowski

2018 ◽  
Vol 617 ◽  
pp. A48 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
N. Aghanim ◽  
Y. Akrami ◽  
M. Ashdown ◽  
J. Aumont ◽  
...  

Using the Planck full-mission data, we present a detection of the temperature (and therefore velocity) dispersion due to the kinetic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (kSZ) effect from clusters of galaxies. To suppress the primary CMB and instrumental noise we derive a matched filter and then convolve it with the Planck foreground-cleaned “2D-ILC” maps. By using the Meta Catalogue of X-ray detected Clusters of galaxies (MCXC), we determine the normalized rms dispersion of the temperature fluctuations at the positions of clusters, finding that this shows excess variance compared with the noise expectation. We then build an unbiased statistical estimator of the signal, determining that the normalized mean temperature dispersion of 1526 clusters is 〈(ΔT/T)2 〉 = (1.64 ± 0.48) × 10−11. However, comparison with analytic calculations and simulations suggest that around 0.7 σ of this result is due to cluster lensing rather than the kSZ effect. By correcting this, the temperature dispersion is measured to be 〈(ΔT/T)2〉 = (1.35 ± 0.48) × 10−11, which gives a detection at the 2.8 σ level. We further convert uniform-weight temperature dispersion into a measurement of the line-of-sight velocity dispersion, by using estimates of the optical depth of each cluster (which introduces additional uncertainty into the estimate). We find that the velocity dispersion is 〈υ2〉 = (123 000 ± 71 000) (km s−1)2, which is consistent with findings from other large-scale structure studies, and provides direct evidence of statistical homogeneity on scales of 600 h−1 Mpc. Our study shows the promise of using cross-correlations of the kSZ effect with large-scale structure in order to constrain the growth of structure.


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