Constraining Magnetic Fields in the Circumgalactic Medium

TL;DR

This study uses Faraday rotation measures and galaxy surveys to set upper limits on magnetic fields in the circumgalactic medium of low-redshift galaxies, challenging previous findings and constraining galaxy magneto-hydrodynamic models.

Contribution

It provides the first non-detection-based upper limits on CGM magnetic fields using a large sample of radio sources and galaxy data, refining previous estimates.

Findings

No significant correlation between rotation measures and galaxy density.

Upper limit of ~20 rad/m^2 for rotation measure within 50 kpc.

Estimated magnetic field strength in the CGM is less than 2 microGauss.

Abstract

We study the properties of magnetic fields in the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of $z<1$ galaxies by correlating Faraday rotation measures of $\sim 1,000$ high-redshift radio sources with the foreground galaxy number density estimated from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys. This method enables us to extract signals of rotation measures contributed by intervening gas around multiple galaxies. Our results show that there is no detectable correlation between the distribution of rotation measures and the number of foreground galaxies, contrary to several previous results. Utilizing the non-detection signals, we estimate $3\sigma$ upper limits to the rotation measures from the CGM of $\sim 20 \rm \ rad/m^{2}$ within~50 kpc and $\sim 10 \rm \ rad / m^{2}$ at separations of $100$ kpc. By adopting a column density distribution of ionized gas obtained from absorption line measurements, we further estimate the strengths of coherent magnetic fields parallel to the line of sight of $<\rm 2 \ \mu G$ in the CGM. We show that the estimated upper limits of rotation measures and magnetic field strengths are sufficient to constrain outputs of recent galaxy magneto-hydrodynamic simulations. Finally, we discuss possible causes for the inconsistency between our results and previous works.