Structure in the local Galactic ISM on scales down to 1 pc, from multi-band radio polarization observations

TL;DR

This study uses multi-band radio polarization observations to reveal small-scale, filamentary structures and abrupt magnetic field changes in the local Galactic ISM, down to 1 parsec scales.

Contribution

It provides new evidence of very thin, 1 pc transition regions in the ISM with significant magnetic field variations, observed through polarization canals and RM changes.

Findings

Polarization intensity shows 'cloudy' structures with 15'-30' scales.

Narrow 'canals' in polarization are caused by depolarization and RM changes.

RM can change by up to 100% across 1 pc regions.

Abstract

We discuss observations of the linearly polarized component of the diffuse galactic radio background. These observations, with an angular resolution of 4', were made with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) in 5 frequency bands in the range 341-375 MHz. The linearly polarized intensity P (with polarized brightness temperature going up to 10K) shows a `cloudy' structure, with characteristic scales of 15'-30', which contains relatively long, but very narrow `canals' (essentially unresolved) in which P is only a small fraction of that in the neighbouring beams. These `canals' are generally seen in more than one frequency band, although their appearance changes between bands. They are probably due to depolarization within the synthesized beam, because the change in polarization angle across the deepest `canals' is in general close to 90 degrees (or 270 etc.). These very abrupt changes in polarization angle, which are seen only across the `canals', seem to be accompanied by abrupt changes in the Rotation Measure (RM), which may have the right magnitude to create the difference of close to 90 degrees in polarization angle, and thereby the `canals'. The structure in the polarization maps is most likely due to Faraday rotation modulation of the probably smooth polarized radiation emitted in the halo of our Galaxy by the fairly local ISM (up to 500 pc). Therefore, the abrupt changes of RM across the `canals' provide evidence for very thin (about 1 pc), and relatively long transition regions in the ISM, across which the RM changes by as much as 100%. Such drastic RM changes may well be due primarily to abrupt changes in the magnetic field.