# Rotation Measures of Extragalactic Sources Behind the Southern Galactic Plane: New Insights into the Large-Scale Magnetic Field of the Inner Milky Way

## TL;DR

This study uses new and existing Faraday rotation measures of extragalactic sources to map the Milky Way's magnetic field, revealing spiral arm correlations and at least one large-scale magnetic reversal in the inner Galaxy.

## Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive analysis combining extragalactic and pulsar RMs to model the large-scale Galactic magnetic field, identifying magnetic reversals and their orientations.

## Key findings

- Magnetic field oscillates with Galactic longitude, correlating with spiral arms.
- At least one large-scale magnetic reversal exists in the fourth Galactic quadrant.
- The magnetic field directions differ between spiral arms, with reversals not requiring numerous large-scale reversals.

## Abstract

We present new Faraday rotation measures (RMs) for 148 extragalactic radio sources behind the southern Galactic plane (253o < l < 356o, |b| < 1.5o), and use these data in combination with published data to probe the large-scale structure of the Milky Way's magnetic field. We show that the magnitudes of these RMs oscillate with longitude in a manner that correlates with the locations of the Galactic spiral arms. The observed pattern in RMs requries the presence of at least one large-scale magnetic reversal in the fourth Galactic quadrant, located between the Sagittarius- Carina and Scutum-Crux spiral arms. To quantitatively compare our measurements to other recent studies, we consider all available extragalactic and pulsar RMs in the region we have surveyed, and jointly fit these data to simple models in which the large-scale field follows the spiral arms. In the best-fitting model, the magnetic field in the fourth Galactic quadrant is directed clockwise in the Sagittarius-Carina spiral arm (as viewed from the North Galactic pole), but is oriented counter- clockwise in the Scutum-Crux arm. This contrasts with recent analyses of pulsar RMs alone, in which the fourth-quadrant field was presumed to be directed counter-clockwise in the Sagittarius- Carina arm. Also in contrast to recent pulsar RM studies, our joint modeling of pulsar and extragalactic RMs demonstrates that large numbers of large-scale magnetic field reversals are not required to account for observations.