Abstracts, Galactic Center Workshop '98
ABSTRACT

The Galactic Center Radio Threads: A Multifrequency, Polarimetric Study

Lang, Cornelia C.12; Morris, Mark2;

1 National Radio Astronomy Observatory; 2 University of California at Los Angeles;

ABSTRACT: Multifrequency, polarimetric observations have been made with the VLA of two of the peculiar non-thermal filaments (NTFs), a class of objects unique to the Galactic Center whose origin is not well understood. The Northern and Southern Threads (G0.08+0.15 and G359.96+0.09) are associated with both the ionized and molecular components in and around SgrA and the Radio Arc. This association may offer clues as to the particle accleration mechanism responsible for their generation. The current observations provide high enough resolution to resolve the width of these NTFs for the first time. The Threads are very narrow:< 0.1 pc in some places but extend for up to 30 pc in length. There is significant detail detected in the NTFs, reminiscent of the other Galactic Center NTFs. In addition, polarization measures confirm that the Threads are non-thermal, with fractional polarizations > 50% in some instances. The Faraday corrected polarization vectors reveal that the intrinsic magnetic field orientation is predominately aligned along the long axis of the NTFs, as expected. The results and analysis of the Galactic Center Radio Threads observations will be presented.

LINKS: Program, Author, clang@astro.ucla.edu