The magnetic environment in the central region of nearby galaxies

TL;DR

This paper investigates the magnetic field structures in the central regions of nearby galaxies, combining new radio polarimetric data of the Milky Way with archival VLA observations to determine if such magnetic features are common in galaxy nuclei.

Contribution

It presents a new radio polarimetric survey of the Milky Way's center and analyzes archival VLA data to identify large-scale magnetic structures in nearby galaxy nuclei, exploring their universality.

Findings

Detection of organized magnetic structures in the Milky Way's center.

Evidence of similar magnetic features in other nearby galaxy nuclei.

Insights into the role of magnetic fields in gas transport and interstellar medium conditions.

Abstract

The central regions of galaxies harbor some of the most extreme physical phenomena, including dense stellar clusters, non-circular motions of molecular clouds and strong and pervasive magnetic field structures. In particular, radio observations have shown that the central few hundred parsecs of our Galaxy has a striking magnetic field configuration. It is not yet clear whether these magnetic structures are unique to our Milky Way or a common feature of all similar galaxies. Therefore, we report on (a) a new radio polarimetric survey of the central 200 pc of the Galaxy to better characterize the magnetic field structure and (b) a search for large-scale and organized magnetized structure in the nuclear regions of nearby galaxies using data from the Very Large Array (VLA) archive. The high angular resolution of the VLA allows us to study the central 1 kpc of the nearest galaxies to search for magnetized nuclear features similar to what is detected in our own Galactic center. Such magnetic features play a important role in the nuclear regions of galaxies in terms of gas transport and the physical conditions of the interstellar medium in this unusual region of galaxies.