The Large-Scale Radio Continuum Structure of Spiral Galaxies

Abstract

This review concerns the large-scale structure of radio continuum emission in spiral galaxies (“the smooth background”), by which we mean the distribution of radio surface brightness at scales larger than, say, 1 kpc. Accordingly the nuclear emission and structure due to spiral arms and HII regions will not be a major topic of discussion here. Already the first mappings of the galactic background suggested that there is indeed a distribution of radio continuum emission extending throughout the Galaxy. This conclusion has been reinforced by the earliest observations of M31 by showing that the general emission from this object extended over at least the whole optical image. More recently, van der Kruit (1973a, b, c) separated the radio emission from a sample of spiral galaxies observed at 1415 MHz with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) into a nuclear, spiral arm and “base disk” component, showing that the latter component usually contains most of the flux density. This latter component is largely non-thermal and extends over the whole optical image (see also van der Kruit and Allen, 1976). Clearly it is astrophysically interesting to discuss the large-scale structure of the radio continuum emission.