HIGHLY POLARIZED COUNTERPART OF THE DOUBLE HELIX NEBULA

Abstract

We identified the double helix nebula (DHN) found by the Spitzer Space Telescopein the Galactic center region as a highly polarized feature at 10 GHz with the Nobeyama 45 m telescope. The DHN is located near the north end of the polarized plumes. The position angles of Faraday rotation corrected B vectors in the DHN are presumably along the twisting IR filaments. The linear polarization degree of the DHN is as large as p = 10%, and reaches p = 15% ± 2% at the radio polarization peak of the DHN. This means that the DHN has highly ordered magnetic field with synchrotron-emitting relativistic electrons.