A magnetized Galactic halo from inner Galaxy outflows

IF 12.9 1区物理与天体物理 Q1 ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS

Nature Astronomy Pub Date : 2024-09-23 DOI:10.1038/s41550-024-02362-0

He-Shou Zhang, Gabriele Ponti, Ettore Carretti, Ruo-Yu Liu, Mark R. Morris, Marijke Haverkorn, Nicola Locatelli, Xueying Zheng, Felix Aharonian, Hai-Ming Zhang, Yi Zhang, Giovanni Stel, Andrew Strong, Michael C. H. Yeung, Andrea Merloni

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Abstract

Magnetic halos of galaxies are crucial for understanding galaxy evolution, galactic-scale outflows and feedback from star formation activity. Identifying the magnetized halo of the Milky Way is challenging because of the potential contamination from foreground emission arising in local spiral arms. In addition, it is unclear how our magnetic halo is influenced by recently revealed large-scale structures such as the X-ray-emitting eROSITA Bubbles detected by the extended Roentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array (eROSITA). Here we report the identification of several kiloparsec-scale magnetized structures on the basis of their polarized radio emission and their gamma-ray counterparts, which can be interpreted as the radiation of relativistic electrons in the Galactic magnetic halo. These non-thermal structures extend far above and below the Galactic plane and are spatially coincident with the thermal X-ray emission from the eROSITA Bubbles. The morphological consistency of these structures suggests a common origin, which can be sustained by Galactic outflows driven by active star-forming regions located in the Galactic Disk at 3–5 kpc from the Galactic Centre. These results reveal how X-ray-emitting and magnetized halos of spiral galaxies can be related to intense star formation activities and suggest that the X-shaped coherent magnetic structures observed in their halos can stem from galactic outflows. A magnetic galactic halo featuring coherent ridges several kiloparsecs above and below the Galactic Disk has been detected in multi-wavelength observations. The halo is probably a consequence of outflows driven by active star-forming regions in the disk.

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来自内银河外流的磁化银河晕

星系的磁晕对于了解星系演化、星系尺度外流和恒星形成活动的反馈至关重要。识别银河系的磁晕具有挑战性，因为可能会受到当地旋臂产生的前景发射的污染。此外，目前还不清楚我们的磁晕是如何受到最近揭示的大尺度结构的影响的，比如由扩展伦琴巡天成像望远镜阵列（eROSITA）探测到的发射 X 射线的 eROSITA 气泡。在这里，我们报告了根据其偏振射电发射及其伽马射线对应物识别出的几个千帕秒级磁化结构，它们可以被解释为银河系磁晕中相对论电子的辐射。这些非热结构延伸到银河平面上下很远的地方，与 eROSITA 气泡的热 X 射线辐射在空间上是重合的。这些结构在形态上的一致性表明它们有一个共同的起源，那就是位于距银河中心 3-5 kpc 的银河盘中的活跃恒星形成区所驱动的银河外流。这些结果揭示了螺旋星系的X射线发射和磁化晕如何与激烈的恒星形成活动有关，并表明在其晕中观测到的X形相干磁性结构可能源于银河外流。

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来源期刊

Nature Astronomy Physics and Astronomy-Astronomy and Astrophysics

CiteScore

19.50

自引率

2.80%

发文量

252

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