Magnetic Fields in Galaxies

Abstract

Radio synchrotron emission, its polarization and its Faraday rotation are powerful tools to study the strength and structure of magnetic fields in galaxies. Unpolarized emission traces turbulent fields which are strongest in spiral arms and bars (20–30 μG) and in central starburst regions (50–100 μG). Such fields are dynamically important, e.g. they can drive gas inflows in central regions. Polarized emission traces ordered fields which can be regular or anisotropic random, generated from isotropic random fields by compression or shear. The strongest ordered fields of 10–15 μG strength are generally found in interarm regions and follow the orientation of adjacent gas spiral arms. Ordered fields with spiral patterns exist in grand-design, barred and flocculent galaxies, and in central regions of starburst galaxies. Faraday rotation measures (RM) of the diffuse polarized radio emission from the disks of several spiral galaxies reveal large-scale patterns, which are signatures of regular fields generated by a mean-field dynamo. However, in most spiral galaxies observed so far the field structure is more complicated. Ordered fields in interacting galaxies have asymmetric distributions and are an excellent tracer of past interactions between galaxies or with the intergalactic medium. Ordered magnetic fields are also observed in radio halos around edge-on galaxies, out to large distances from the plane, with X-shaped patterns. Future observations of polarized emission at high frequencies, with the EVLA, the SKA and its precursors, will trace galactic magnetic fields in unprecedented detail. Low-frequency telescopes (e.g. LOFAR and MWA) are ideal to search for diffuse emission and small RMs from weak interstellar and intergalactic fields.