A comparison of multi-phase magnetic field tracers in a high-galactic latitude region of the filamentary interstellar medium

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Date

2022

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

IOP Publishing

Abstract

Understanding how the Galactic magnetic field threads the multiphase interstellar medium (ISM) remains a considerable challenge, as different magnetic field tracers probe dissimilar phases and field components. We search for evidence of a common magnetic field shared between the ionized and neutral ISM by comparing 1.4 GHz radio continuum polarization and H I line emission from the Galactic Arecibo L-Band Feed Array Continuum Transit Survey (GALFACTS) and Galactic Arecibo L-Band Feed Array H I (GALFA-H I) survey, respectively. We compute the polarization gradient of the continuum emission and search for associations with diffuse/translucent H I structures. The polarization gradient is sensitive to changes in the integrated product of the thermal electron density and line-of-sight field strength (B∥) in warm ionized gas, while narrow H I structures highlight the plane-ofsky field orientation in cold neutral gas. We identified one region in the high Galactic latitude Arecibo sky, G216 +26 centered on (ℓ, b) ∼ (216°, +26°), containing filaments in the polarization gradient that are aligned with narrow H I structures roughly parallel to the Galactic plane.

Description

Keywords

Astronomy, Astrophysics, Astrophysical magnetism, Interstellar filaments, Milky Way magnetic fields

Citation

Campbell, J. et al. (2022). A comparison of multi-phase magnetic field tracers in a high-galactic latitude region of the filamentary interstellar medium. The Astrophysical Journal, 927(1), 49. 10.3847/1538-4357/ac400d