Nature Astronomy ( IF 12.9 ) 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
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.
中文翻译:
从银河系内部流出的磁化银河晕
星系的磁晕对于理解星系演化、星系尺度的流出和恒星形成活动的反馈至关重要。识别银河系的磁化晕具有挑战性,因为局部旋臂中的前景发射可能会造成污染。此外,目前还不清楚我们的磁晕如何受到最近发现的大规模结构的影响,例如通过扩展伦琴成像望远镜阵列(eROSITA)探测到的X射线发射eROSITA气泡。在这里,我们报告了根据其极化无线电发射及其伽马射线对应物识别了几个千秒差距尺度的磁化结构,这可以解释为银河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方和下方很远的地方,并且在空间上与 eROSITA 气泡发射的热 X 射线重合。这些结构的形态一致性表明有一个共同的起源,可以通过位于银盘中距银河中心 3-5 kpc 的活跃恒星形成区域驱动的银河流出来维持。这些结果揭示了螺旋星系的X射线发射和磁化晕如何与强烈的恒星形成活动相关,并表明在其晕中观察到的X形相干磁结构可能源于星系外流。