Listening to the Extragalactic Radio

A study of spiral galaxies seen edge-on has revealed that “halos” of cosmic rays and magnetic fields above and below the galaxies' disks are much more common than previously thought.

An international team of astronomers used the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to study 35 edge-on spiral galaxies at distances from 11 million to 137 million light-years from Earth. The study took advantage of the ability of the VLA, following completion of a decade-long upgrade project, to detect radio emission much fainter than previously possible.

“We knew before that some halos existed, but, using the full power of the upgraded VLA and the full power of some advanced image-processing techniques, we found that these halos are much more common among spiral galaxies than we had realized,” says Judith Irwin, of Queen's University in Canada, leader of the project.

Spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, have the vast majority of their stars, gas, and dust in a flat, rotating disk with spiral arms. Most of the light and radio waves seen with telescopes come from objects in that disk. Learning about the environment above and below such disks has been difficult.

“Studying these halos with radio telescopes can give us valuable information about a wide range of phenomena, including the rate of star formation within the disk, the winds from exploding stars, and the nature and origin of the galaxies' magnetic fields,” says Theresa Wiegert, also of Queen's University, lead author of a paper in the Astronomical Journal reporting the team's findings. The paper provides the first analysis of data from all 35 galaxies in the study.

“We have studied the extended halos of individual galaxies for quite some time”, explains Ralf-Jürgen Dettmar from Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany. “The CHANG-ES sample will provide an additional statistical access to the important question of galactic feedback.” One of his prime research targets, NGC 5775, was used as template in order to represent the inner star forming region of spiral galaxies in Fig. 1.

To see how extensive a “typical” halo is, the astronomers scaled their images of 30 of the galaxies to the same diameter, then another of the authors, Jayanne English, of the University of Manitoba in Canada, combined them into a single image. The result, says Irwin, is “a spectactular image showing that cosmic rays and magnetic fields not only permeate the galaxy disk itself, but extend far above and below the disk.”

The combined image, the scientists said, confirms a prediction of such halos made in 1961.

Along with the report on their findings, the astronomers also are making their first batch of specialized VLA images available to other researchers. In previous publications, the team described the details of their project and its goals. The team has completed a series of VLA observations and their latest paper is based on analysis of their first set of images. They now are analyzing additional datasets, and also will make those additional images available to other scientists when they publish the results of the later analyses.

“The results from this survey will help answer many unsolved questions in galactic evolution and star formation”, concludes Marita Krause of the Max-Planck Institute für Radioastronomie in Bonn, Germany.

The research team comprises Philip Schmidt, Silvia Carolina Mora, Ancor Damas-Segovia, Marita Krause & Rainer Beck (all Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany), Theresa Wiegert, the lead author, Judith Irwin, Stephen MacGregor & Amanda DeSouza (all Dept. of Physics, Engineering Physics & Astronomy, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada), Arpad Miskolczi, Yelena Stein, Ralf-Jürgen Dettmar, Marek Wezgowiec (all Astronomisches Institut, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany), Jayanne English (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada), Richard J. Rand, Isaiah Santistevan (Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA), Rene Walterbos (Dept. of Astronomy, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, USA), Amanda Kepley (NRAO, Charlottesville, USA) , Q. Daniel Wang (Dept. of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA), George Heald (ASTRON, Dwingeloo, The Netherlands), Jiangtao Li (Dept. of Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA), Megan Johnson (CSIRO, Epping, Australia), Andrew W. Strong (Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Garching, Germany), Troy A. Porter (Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, Stanford University, USA).

This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is run by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The work at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, has been supported by DFG through FOR1048. The support of the Computer Center of the Max-Planck Institute (RZG) in Garching, Germany, for the use of archiving facilities is acknowledged.

Original Paper:

“CHANG-ES IV: Radio continuum emission of 35 edge-on galaxies observed with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in D-configuration”, by T. Wiegert et al., 2015, The Astronomical Journal, Volume 150, Issue 3, article id. 81, 23 pp. (2015):
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-6256/150/3/81

See also: http://de.arxiv.org/abs/1508.05153

Local Contact:

Dr. Marita Krause,
Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn.
Fon: +49-228-525-312
E-mail: mkrause@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de

Dr. Rainer Beck,
Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn.
Fon: +49-228-525-323
E-mail: rbeck@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de

Dr. Norbert Junkes,
Press and Public Outreach,
Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie.
Fon: +49(0)228-525-399
E-mail: njunkes@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de

http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/pressreleases/2015/7