scholarly journals AGN dusty plasma polarization features

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (S313) ◽  
pp. 352-357
Author(s):  
Ericson D. Lopez ◽  
Susana Deustua

AbstractWe present the results of a theoretical study on the influence of dust particles on the polarization properties of the radiation that propagates along the jet in AGNs. First, a model for describing the interaction of dust particles, in addition to the electrons and ions, with electromagnetic radiation in a magneto-active plasma has been developed. From here, the contribution of dust particles to the Faraday rotation of the plane of polarization of the electric vector can be deduced. This model is evaluated for the outer region of the jet where the presence of dust particles are assumed, the magnetic field is weak and the electron density is low. Our results show that the dust particles give a significant contribution to the linear Faraday rotation measure.

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (H16) ◽  
pp. 400-400
Author(s):  
Pallavi Bhat ◽  
Kandaswamy Subramanian

We study fluctuation dynamo (FD) action in turbulent systems like galaxy-clusters focusing on the Faraday rotation signature. This is defined as RM = K ∫LneB ⋅ dl where ne is the thermal electron density, B is the magnetic field, the integration is along the line of sight from the source to the observer, and K = 0.81 rad m−2 cm−3 μG−1 pc−1. We directly compute, using the simulation data, ∫ B ⋅ dl, and hence the Faraday rotation measure (RM) over 3N2 lines of sight, along each x, y and z-directions. We normalise the RM by the rms value expected in a simple model, where a field of strength Brms fills each turbulent cell but is randomly oriented from one turbulent cell to another. This normalised RM is expected to have a nearly zero mean but a non-zero dispersion, σRM. We show in Fig. 1a and 1b, that a suite of simulations, on saturation, obtain the value of σRM = 0.4−0.5, and this is independent of PM, RM and the resolution of the run. This is a fairly large value for an intermittent random field; as it is of order 40%–50%, of that expected in a model where Brms strength fields volume fill each turbulent cell, but are randomly oriented from one cell to another. We also find that the regions with a field strength larger than 2Brms contribute only 15–20% to the total RM (see Fig. 1a). This shows that it is the general ‘sea’ of volume filling fluctuating fields that contribute dominantly to the RM produced, rather than the the high field regions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 642 ◽  
pp. A201 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Reissl ◽  
J. M. Stil ◽  
E. Chen ◽  
R. G. Treß ◽  
M. C. Sormani ◽  
...  

Context. The Faraday rotation measure (RM) is often used to study the magnetic field strength and orientation within the ionized medium of the Milky Way. Recent observations indicate an RM magnitude in the spiral arms that exceeds the commonly assumed range. This raises the question of how and under what conditions spiral arms create such strong Faraday rotation. Aims. We investigate the effect of spiral arms on Galactic Faraday rotation through shock compression of the interstellar medium. It has recently been suggested that the Sagittarius spiral arm creates a strong peak in Faraday rotation where the line of sight is tangent to the arm, and that enhanced Faraday rotation follows along side lines which intersect the arm. Here our aim is to understand the physical conditions that may give rise to this effect and the role of viewing geometry. Methods. We apply a magnetohydrodynamic simulation of the multi-phase interstellar medium in a Milky Way-type spiral galaxy disk in combination with radiative transfer in order to evaluate different tracers of spiral arm structures. For observers embedded in the disk, dust intensity, synchrotron emission, and the kinematics of molecular gas observations are derived to identify which spiral arm tangents are observable. Faraday rotation measures are calculated through the disk and evaluated in the context of different observer positions. The observer’s perspectives are related to the parameters of the local bubbles surrounding the observer and their contribution to the total Faraday rotation measure along the line of sight. Results. We reproduce a scattering of tangent points for the different tracers of about 6° per spiral arm similar to the Milky Way. For the RM, the model shows that compression of the interstellar medium and associated amplification of the magnetic field in spiral arms enhances Faraday rotation by a few hundred rad m−2 in addition to the mean contribution of the disk. The arm–interarm contrast in Faraday rotation per unit distance along the line of sight is approximately ~10 in the inner Galaxy, fading to ~2 in the outer Galaxy in tandem with the waning contrast of other tracers of spiral arms. We identify a shark fin pattern in the RM Milky Way observations and in the synthetic data that is characteristic for a galaxy with spiral arms.


2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (09) ◽  
pp. 1553-1560 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. P. O'SULLIVAN ◽  
D. C. GABUZDA

Multi-frequency (4.6, 5, 5.5, 8, 8.8, 13, 15, 22 & 43 GHz) polarization observations of six "blazars" were obtained on the American Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) over a 24-hr period on 2 July 2006. Observing at several frequencies, separated by short and long intervals, enabled reliable determination of the distribution of Faraday rotation on a range of scales. In all cases the magnitude of the RM increases in the higher frequency observations, implying that the electron density and/or magnetic field strength is increasing as we get closer to the central engine. After correcting for Faraday rotation, the polarization orientation in the jet is either parallel or perpendicular to the jet direction. A transverse rotation measure (RM) gradient was detected in the jet of 0954+658, providing evidence for the presence of a helical magnetic field surrounding the jet. For three of the sources (0954+658, 1418+546, 2200+420), the sign of the RM in the core region changes in different frequency-intervals, indicating that the line-of-sight component of the magnetic field is changing with distance from the base of the jet. We suggest an explanation for this in terms of bends in a relativistic jet surrounded by a helical magnetic field; where there is no clear evidence for pc-scale bends, the same effect can be explained by an accelerating/decelerating jet.


2020 ◽  
Vol 500 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-176
Author(s):  
Stefan Reissl ◽  
Amelia M Stutz ◽  
Ralf S Klessen ◽  
Daniel Seifried ◽  
Stefanie Walch

ABSTRACT The degree to which the formation and evolution of clouds and filaments in the interstellar medium is regulated by magnetic fields remains an open question. Yet the fundamental properties of the fields (strength and 3D morphology) are not readily observable. We investigate the potential for recovering magnetic field information from dust polarization, the Zeeman effect, and the Faraday rotation measure (RM) in a SILCC-Zoom magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) filament simulation. The object is analysed at the onset of star formation and it is characterized by a line-mass of about $\mathrm{\left(M/L\right) \sim 63\ \mathrm{M}_{\odot }\ pc^{-1}}$ out to a radius of $1\,$ pc and a kinked 3D magnetic field morphology. We generate synthetic observations via polaris radiative transfer (RT) post-processing and compare with an analytical model of helical or kinked field morphology to help interpreting the inferred observational signatures. We show that the tracer signals originate close to the filament spine. We find regions along the filament where the angular dependence with the line of sight (LOS) is the dominant factor and dust polarization may trace the underlying kinked magnetic field morphology. We also find that reversals in the recovered magnetic field direction are not unambiguously associated to any particular morphology. Other physical parameters, such as density or temperature, are relevant and sometimes dominant compared to the magnetic field structure in modulating the observed signal. We demonstrate that the Zeeman effect and the RM recover the line-of-sight magnetic field strength to within a factor 2.1–3.4. We conclude that the magnetic field morphology may not be unambiguously determined in low-mass systems by observations of dust polarization, Zeeman effect, or RM, whereas the field strengths can be reliably recovered.


2019 ◽  
Vol 623 ◽  
pp. A111 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Hovatta ◽  
S. O’Sullivan ◽  
I. Martí-Vidal ◽  
T. Savolainen ◽  
A. Tchekhovskoy

Aims. We studied the polarization behavior of the quasar 3C 273 over the 1 mm wavelength band at ALMA with a total bandwidth of 7.5 GHz across 223–243 GHz at 0.8′′ resolution, corresponding to 2.1 kpc at the distance of 3C 273. With these observations we were able to probe the optically thin polarized emission close to the jet base, and constrain the magnetic field structure. Methods. We computed the Faraday rotation measure using simple linear fitting and Faraday rotation measure synthesis. In addition, we modeled the broadband behavior of the fractional Stokes Q and U parameters (qu-fitting). The systematic uncertainties in the polarization observations at ALMA were assessed through Monte Carlo simulations. Results. We find the unresolved core of 3C 273 to be 1.8% linearly polarized. We detect a very high rotation measure (RM) of (5.0 ± 0.3) × 105 rad m−2 over the 1 mm band when assuming a single polarized component and an external RM screen. This results in a rotation of >40° of the intrinsic electric vector position angle, which is significantly higher than typically assumed for millimeter wavelengths. The polarization fraction increases as a function of wavelength, which according to our qu-fitting could be due to multiple polarized components of different Faraday depth within our beam or to internal Faraday rotation. With our limited wavelength coverage we cannot distinguish between the cases, and additional multifrequency and high angular resolution observations are needed to determine the location and structure of the magnetic field of the Faraday active region. Comparing our RM estimate with values obtained at lower frequencies, the RM increases as a function of observing frequency, following a power law with an index of 2.0 ± 0.2, consistent with a sheath surrounding a conically expanding jet. We also detect ~0.2% circular polarization, although further observations are needed to confirm this result.


2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (S254) ◽  
pp. 95-96
Author(s):  
Arthur M. Wolfe ◽  
Regina A. Jorgenson ◽  
Timothy Robishaw ◽  
Carl Heiles ◽  
Jason X. Prochaska

AbstractThe magnetic field pervading our Galaxy is a crucial constituent of the interstellar medium: it mediates the dynamics of interstellar clouds, the energy density of cosmic rays, and the formation of stars (Beck 2005). The field associated with ionized interstellar gas has been determined through observations of pulsars in our Galaxy. Radio-frequency measurements of pulse dispersion and the rotation of the plane of linear polarization, i.e., Faraday rotation, yield an average value B ≈ 3 μG (Han et al. 2006). The possible detection of Faraday rotation of linearly polarized photons emitted by high-redshift quasars (Kronberg et al. 2008) suggests similar magnetic fields are present in foreground galaxies with redshifts z > 1. As Faraday rotation alone, however, determines neither the magnitude nor the redshift of the magnetic field, the strength of galactic magnetic fields at redshifts z > 0 remains uncertain.Here we report a measurement of a magnetic field of B ≈ 84 μG in a galaxy at z =0.692, using the same Zeeman-splitting technique that revealed an average value of B = 6 μG in the neutral interstellar gas of our Galaxy (Heiles et al. 2004). This is unexpected, as the leading theory of magnetic field generation, the mean-field dynamo model, predicts large-scale magnetic fields to be weaker in the past, rather than stronger (Parker 1970).The full text of this paper was published in Nature (Wolfe et al. 2008).


2013 ◽  
Vol 135 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jian-Ping Zhang ◽  
Yong-Xia Dai ◽  
Jiong-Lei Wu ◽  
Jian-Xing Ren ◽  
Helen Wu ◽  
...  

The aim of this work is to find an effective method to improve the collection efficiency of electrostatic precipitators (ESPs). A mathematic model of an ESP subjected to the external magnetic field was proposed. The model considered the coupled effects between the gas flow field, particle dynamic field and electromagnetic field. Particles following a Rosin-Rammler distribution were simulated under various conditions and the influence of the magnetic field density on the capture of fine particles was investigated. The collection efficiency and the escaped particle size distribution under different applied magnetic field intensities were discussed. Particle trajectories inside the ESP under aerodynamic and electromagnetic forces were also analyzed. Numerical results indicate that the collection efficiency increases with the increase of applied magnetic field. It was also found that a stronger applied magnetic field results in a larger particle deflection towards the dust collection plates. Furthermore, the average diameter of escaping particles decreases and the dispersion of dust particles with different sizes increases with the increasingly applied magnetic field. Finally, the average diameter decreases almost linearly with the magnetic field until it drops to a certain value. The model proposed in this work is able to obtain important information on the particle collection phenomena inside an industrial ESP under the applied magnetic field.


2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (06) ◽  
pp. 917-922
Author(s):  
JOSÉ L. GÓMEZ ◽  
MAR ROCA-SOGORB ◽  
IVÁN AGUDO ◽  
ALAN P. MARSCHER ◽  
SVETLANA G. JORSTAD

We present a sequence of 12 monthly polarimetric multi-frequency VLBA observations of the radio galaxy 3C 120. The motion of multiple superluminal components allows the mapping of the polarization structure along most of the jet and across its width, revealing a coherent in time Faraday screen and RM-corrected polarization angles. Gradients in Faraday rotation and degree of polarization across the jet are observed, together with a localized region of high rotation measure superposed on this structure. This is explained as produced by the presence of a helical magnetic field in a two-fluid jet model, consisting of an inner emitting jet and a sheath containing nonrelativistic electrons. Interaction of the jet with the external medium would explain the confined region of enhanced Faraday rotation.


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