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