scholarly journals Magnetism in galaxies – Observational overview and next generation radio telescopes

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (S274) ◽  
pp. 325-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Beck
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Fields ◽  
Faraday Rotation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Cosmic Ray ◽  
Radio Continuum ◽  
Continuum Emission ◽  
Radio Telescopes ◽  
Spiral Arms ◽  
Central Regions

AbstractThe strength and structure of cosmic magnetic fields is best studied by observations of radio continuum emission, its polarization and its Faraday rotation. Fields with a well-ordered spiral structure exist in many types of galaxies. Total field strengths in spiral arms and bars are 20–30 μG and dynamically important. Strong fields in central regions can drive gas inflows towards an active nucleus. The strongest regular fields (10–15 μG) are found in interarm regions, sometimes forming “magnetic spiral arms” between the optical arms. The typical degree of polarization is a few % in spiral arms, but high (up to 50%) in interarm regions. The detailed field structures suggest interaction with gas flows. Faraday rotation measures of the polarization vectors reveals large-scale patterns in several spiral galaxies which are regarded as signatures of large-scale (coherent) fields generated by dynamos. – Polarization observations with the forthcoming large radio telescopes will open a new era in the observation of magnetic fields and should help to understand their origin. Low-frequency radio synchrotron emission traces low-energy cosmic ray electrons which can propagate further away from their origin. LOFAR (30–240 MHz) will allow us to map the structure of weak magnetic fields in the outer regions and halos of galaxies, in galaxy clusters and in the Milky Way. Polarization at higher frequencies (1–10 GHz), to be observed with the EVLA, MeerKAT, APERTIF and the SKA, will trace magnetic fields in the disks and central regions of galaxies in unprecedented detail. All-sky surveys of Faraday rotation measures towards a dense grid of polarized background sources with ASKAP and the SKA are dedicated to measure magnetic fields in distant intervening galaxies and clusters, and will be used to model the overall structure and strength of the magnetic field in the Milky Way.

scholarly journals Magnetic Fields and Spiral Structure

1983 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
pp. 159-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Beck
Keyword(s):  
Star Formation ◽  
Magnetic Fields ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Spiral Structure ◽  
Radio Continuum ◽  
Continuum Emission ◽  
Radio Telescopes ◽  
Evolution Of Galaxies ◽  
Structure Strength ◽  
Spiral Structures

Interstellar magnetic fields are known to be a constraint for star formation, but their influence on the formation of spiral structures and the evolution of galaxies is generally neglected. Structure, strength and degree of uniformity of interstellar magnetic fields can be determined by measuring the linearly polarised radio continuum emission at several frequencies (e.g. Beck, 1982). Results for 7 galaxies observed until now with the Effelsberg and Westerbork radio telescopes are given in the table. The Milky Way is also included for comparison.

scholarly journals Measuring interstellar magnetic fields by radio synchrotron emission

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (S259) ◽  
pp. 3-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Beck
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Fields ◽  
Faraday Rotation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Synchrotron Emission ◽  
Intensity Measures ◽  
Spiral Arms ◽  
Preferred Direction ◽  
Ordered Fields

AbstractRadio synchrotron emission, its polarization and its Faraday rotation are powerful tools to study the strength and structure of interstellar magnetic fields. The total intensity traces the strength and distribution of total magnetic fields. Total fields in gas-rich spiral arms and bars of nearby galaxies have strengths of 20–30 μGauss, due to the amplification of turbulent fields, and are dynamically important. In the Milky Way, the total field strength is about 6 μG near the Sun and several 100 μG in filaments near the Galactic Center. – The polarized intensity measures ordered fields with a preferred orientation, which can be regular or anisotropic fields. Ordered fields with spiral structure exist in grand-design, barred, flocculent and even in irregular galaxies. The strongest ordered fields are found in interarm regions, sometimes forming “magnetic spiral arms” between the optical arms. Halo fields are X-shaped, probably due to outflows. – The Faraday rotation of the polarization vectors traces coherent regular fields which have a preferred direction. In some galaxies Faraday rotation reveals large-scale patterns which are signatures of dynamo fields. However, in most galaxies the field has a complicated structure and interacts with local gas flows. In the Milky Way, diffuse polarized radio emission and Faraday rotation of the polarized emission from pulsars and background sources show many small-scale and large-scale magnetic features, but the overall field structure in our Galaxy is still under debate.

scholarly journals Measurements of Cosmic Magnetism with LOFAR and SKA

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 399-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Beck
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Fields ◽  
Interstellar Medium ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Intergalactic Medium ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Radio Telescopes ◽  
New Era ◽  
Origin And Evolution ◽  
Central Regions ◽  
Nearby Galaxies

Abstract. The origin of magnetic fields in stars, galaxies and clusters is an open problem in astrophysics. The next-generation radio telescopes Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) and Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will revolutionize the study of cosmic magnetism. "The origin and evolution of cosmic magnetism" is a key science project for SKA. The planned all-sky survey of Faraday rotation measures (RM) at 1.4 GHz will be used to model the structure and strength of the magnetic fields in the intergalactic medium, the interstellar medium of intervening galaxies, and in the Milky Way. A complementary survey of selected regions at around 200 MHz is planned as a key project for LOFAR. Spectro-polarimetry applied to the large number of spectral channels available for LOFAR and SKA will allow to separate RM components from distinct foreground and background regions and to perform 3-D Faraday tomography of the interstellar medium of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies. – Deep polarization mapping with LOFAR and SKA will open a new era also in the observation of synchrotron emission from magnetic fields. LOFAR's sensitivity will allow to map the structure of weak, extended magnetic fields in the halos of galaxies, in galaxy clusters, and possibly in the intergalactic medium. Polarization observations with SKA at higher frequencies (1–10 GHz) will show the detailed magnetic field structure within the disks and central regions of galaxies, with much higher angular resolution than present-day radio telescopes.

scholarly journals Understanding our Galaxy: from the center to outskirts

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (S248) ◽  
pp. 470-473
Author(s):  
Z. Q. Shen ◽  
Y. Xu ◽  
J. L. Han ◽  
X. W. Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Fields ◽  
Radio Source ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Galactic Center ◽  
Galactic Disk ◽  
Spiral Arms ◽  
Compact Radio Source ◽  
Sgr A ◽  
Spiral Arm

AbstractWe describe the efforts to understand our Milky Way Galaxy, from its center to outskirts, including (1) the measurements of the intrinsic size of the galactic center compact radio source Sgr A*; (2) the determination of the distance from the Sun to the Perseus spiral arm; and (3) the revealing of large scale global magnetic fields of the Galaxy.With high-resolution millimeter-VLBI observations, Shen et al. (2005) have measured the intrinsic size of the radio-emitting region of the galactic center compact radio source Sgr A* to be only 1 AU in diameter at 3.5 mm. When combined with the lower limit on the mass of Sgr A*, this provides strong evidence for Sgr A* being a super-massive black hole. Comparison with the intrinsic size detection at 7 mm indicates a frequency-dependent source size, posing a tight constraint on various theoretical models.With VLBI phase referencing observations, Xu et al. (2006) have measured the trigonometric parallax of W3OH in the Perseus spiral arm with an accuracy of 10 μas and also its absolute velocity with an accuracy of 1 km s−1. This demonstrates the capability of probing the structure and kinematics of the Milky Way by determining distances to 12 GHz methanol (CH3OH) masers in star forming regions of distant spiral arms and Milky Way's outskirts.With pulsar dispersion measures and rotation measures, Han et al. (2006) can directly measure the magnetic fields in a very large region of the Galactic disk. The results show that the large-scale magnetic fields are aligned with the spiral arms but reverse their directions many times from the most inner Norma arm to the outer Perseus arm.

scholarly journals Magnetic Fields and Halos in Spiral Galaxies

Galaxies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marita Krause
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Magnetic Fields ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Spiral Galaxies ◽  
Cosmic Ray ◽  
Radio Continuum ◽  
Field Pattern ◽  
Dynamo Action ◽  
Disk Plane ◽  
The Magnetic Field

Radio continuum and polarization observations reveal best the magnetic field structure and strength in nearby spiral galaxies. They show a similar magnetic field pattern, which is of spiral shape along the disk plane and X-shaped in the halo, sometimes accompanied by strong vertical fields above and below the central region of the disk. The strength of the total halo field is comparable to that of the disk. The small- and large-scale dynamo action is discussed to explain the observations with special emphasis on the rôle of star formation on the α − Ω dynamo and the magnetic field strength and structure in the disk and halo. Recently, with RM-synthesis of the CHANG-ES observations, we obtained the first observational evidence for the existence of regular magnetic fields in the halo. The analysis of the radio scale heights indicate escape-dominated radio halos with convective cosmic ray propagation for many galaxies. These galactic winds may be essential for an effective dynamo action and may transport large-scale magnetic field from the disk into the halo.

scholarly journals Polarized Radio Emission from M51

1990 ◽  
Vol 140 ◽  
pp. 211-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Horellou ◽  
R. Beck ◽  
U. Klein
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Azimuthal Angle ◽  
Radio Continuum ◽  
Continuum Emission ◽  
Spiral Arms ◽  
Large Scale Magnetic Field ◽  
Rotation Measure ◽  
First Time ◽  
Magnetic Spiral ◽  
Companion Galaxy

The polarized radio continuum emission of M51 is found to be strongest outside the optical spiral arms. The rotation measure varies double-sinusoidally with azimuthal angle which for the first time clearly shows a dominating bisymmetric spiral (BSS) structure of the large-scale magnetic field in M51. The pitch angle of the magnetic spiral is similar to that of the optical spiral arms. The lowest (axisymmetric) dynamo mode is possibly suppressed by interaction with the companion galaxy.

scholarly journals Radio continuum emission of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies

1985 ◽  
Vol 106 ◽  
pp. 239-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Beck ◽  
Wolfgang Reich
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Central Region ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Thin Disk ◽  
Radio Continuum ◽  
Continuum Emission ◽  
Spiral Arms ◽  
Ordered Field ◽  
Nearby Galaxies ◽  
The Magnetic Field

The radio continuum emission of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies can be decomposed into a central region, a clumpy “thin disk”, concentrated in the spiral arms, and a smooth “thick disk” (or flattened “halo”). The emissivity ratio of the two disks seems to be related to the magnetic field properties: Galaxies with strong radio spiral arms reveal a highly ordered field following the arm direction, while galaxies with diffuse disks contain a less ordered, smoothly distributed field. The degree of uniformity of the field seems to correlate with the total optical luminosity. The average magnetic field in the Milky Way is weak and turbulent compared to most of the nearby galaxies observed so far.

scholarly journals An 84-μG Magnetic Field in a Galaxy at Z=0.692?

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (S254) ◽  
pp. 95-96
Author(s):  
Arthur M. Wolfe ◽  
Regina A. Jorgenson ◽  
Timothy Robishaw ◽  
Carl Heiles ◽  
Jason X. Prochaska
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Magnetic Fields ◽  
Faraday Rotation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Dynamo Model ◽  
Magnetic Field Generation ◽  
Interstellar Gas ◽  
Splitting Technique ◽  
Average Value ◽  
The Magnetic Field

AbstractThe magnetic field pervading our Galaxy is a crucial constituent of the interstellar medium: it mediates the dynamics of interstellar clouds, the energy density of cosmic rays, and the formation of stars (Beck 2005). The field associated with ionized interstellar gas has been determined through observations of pulsars in our Galaxy. Radio-frequency measurements of pulse dispersion and the rotation of the plane of linear polarization, i.e., Faraday rotation, yield an average value B ≈ 3 μG (Han et al. 2006). The possible detection of Faraday rotation of linearly polarized photons emitted by high-redshift quasars (Kronberg et al. 2008) suggests similar magnetic fields are present in foreground galaxies with redshifts z > 1. As Faraday rotation alone, however, determines neither the magnitude nor the redshift of the magnetic field, the strength of galactic magnetic fields at redshifts z > 0 remains uncertain.Here we report a measurement of a magnetic field of B ≈ 84 μG in a galaxy at z =0.692, using the same Zeeman-splitting technique that revealed an average value of B = 6 μG in the neutral interstellar gas of our Galaxy (Heiles et al. 2004). This is unexpected, as the leading theory of magnetic field generation, the mean-field dynamo model, predicts large-scale magnetic fields to be weaker in the past, rather than stronger (Parker 1970).The full text of this paper was published in Nature (Wolfe et al. 2008).

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