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arXiv 1202.1650astro-ph.COastro-ph.HE
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反退极化:河外射电喷流内法拉第旋转和螺旋磁场的潜在探测

Inverse Depolarization: A Potential Probe of Internal Faraday Rotation and Helical Magnetic Fields in Extragalactic Radio Jets

Daniel C. Homan

摘要:

最近的观察表明,随着波长的增加,在一个小数目的光学薄喷流功能,即“逆去极化”的分数线性偏振增加的动机,我们提出了一个物理模型,可以解释这种效果,并可能提供一个新的和互补的探测的低能量粒子人口和可能的螺旋磁场在河外射电喷流。在我们的模型中,结构的不均匀性在射流磁场创建沿视线的极化抵消。内部法拉第旋转,其增加像波长平方,作用是从喷流的远侧和近侧对准偏振,导致在较长波长处增加偏振。正确类型的结构不均匀性在螺旋磁场中自然产生,并且也会出现在随机缠结的磁场中。我们探索这两种选择,并发现,对于随机场,纠缠的长度尺度不能太小的射流直径的一小部分,仍然是一致的,在这些功能中观察到的分数极化的相对较高的水平。我们还发现,螺旋磁场自然产生的横向结构的逆去极化,这可能是可观察到的,即使在部分解决射流。

英文摘要:

Motivated by recent observations that show increasing fractional linear polarization with increasing wavelength in a small number of optically thin jet features, i.e. "inverse depolarization", we present a physical model that can explain this effect and may provide a new and complementary probe of the low energy particle population and possible helical magnetic fields in extragalactic radio jets. In our model, structural inhomogeneities in the jet magnetic field create cancellation of polarization along the line of sight. Internal Faraday rotation, which increases like wavelength squared, acts to align the polarization from the far and near sides of the jet, leading to increased polarization at longer wavelengths. Structural inhomogeneities of the right type are naturally produced in helical magnetic fields and will also appear in randomly tangled magnetic fields. We explore both alternatives and find that, for random fields, the length scale for tangling cannot be too small a fraction of the jet diameter and still be consistent with the relatively high levels of fractional polarization observed in these features. We also find that helical magnetic fields naturally produce transverse structure for inverse depolarization which may be observable even in partially resolved jets.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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