A New Lower Limit to the Galactic Centre's Magnetic Field

TL;DR

This paper establishes a firm lower limit of about 50 microGauss for the magnetic field at 400 parsecs from the Galactic Centre by analyzing radio spectra and gamma-ray constraints, narrowing previous uncertainties.

Contribution

It provides the first robust lower limit on the GC magnetic field at large scales based on radio and gamma-ray data analysis.

Findings

Magnetic field at 400 pc from GC is at least 50 microG.

Radio spectrum shows a broken power law indicating cooling processes.

Gamma-ray constraints limit the synchrotron emission, setting the lower magnetic field bound.

Abstract

The amplitude of the magnetic field surrounding the Galactic Centre (GC) on large scales (> 100 pc) has been uncertain by two orders of magnitude for several decades: different analyses report fields as weak as ~6 microG on the one hand and 1 mG on the other. Here I report on our recent work which shows that the field on 400 pc scales has a firm lower limit of about 50 microG. To obtain this result we compiled existing (mostly single dish) radio data to construct the spectrum of the GC region on these size scales. This spectrum is a broken power law with a down-break (most conservatively) attributable to a transition from bremsstrahlung to synchrotron cooling of the in-situ cosmic-ray electron population. The lower limit on the magnetic field arises through the consideration that the synchrotron-emitting electrons should not produce too much gamma-ray emission given existing constraints from the EGRET instrument.