Probing the Morphology of Polarized Emission Induced by Fluctuation Dynamo using Minkowski Functionals

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Auteurs principaux: Dutta, Riju, Sur, Sharanya, Basu, Aritra
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Dutta, Riju
Sur, Sharanya
Basu, Aritra
author_facet Dutta, Riju
Sur, Sharanya
Basu, Aritra
contents The morphology and the characteristic scale of polarized structures provide crucial insights into the mechanisms that drive turbulence and maintain magnetic fields in magneto-ionic plasma. We aim to establish the efficacy of Minkowski functionals as quantitative statistical probes of filamentary morphology of polarized synchrotron emission resulting from fluctuation dynamo action. Using synthetic observations generated from magnetohydrodynamic simulations of fluctuation dynamos with varying driving scales ($\ell_{\rm f}$) of turbulence in isothermal, incompressible, and subsonic media, we study the relation between different morphological measures and their connection to fractional polarization ($p_{\rm f}$). We find that Faraday depolarization at low frequencies gives rise to small-scale polarized structures that have higher filamentarity as compared to the intrinsic structures that are comparable to $\ell_{\rm f}$. Above $\sim3\,{\rm GHz}$, the number of connected polarized structures per unit area ($N_{\rm CC, peak}$) is related to the mean $p_{\rm f}$ ($\langle p_{\rm f} \rangle$) of the emitting region as $\langle p_{\rm f}\rangle \propto N_{\rm CC, peak}^{-1/4}$, provided the scale of the detectable emitting region is larger than $\ell_{\rm f}$. This implies that $N_{\rm CC,peak}$ represents the number of turbulent cells projected on the plane of the sky and can be directly used to infer $\ell_{\rm f}$ via the relation $\ell_{\rm f} \propto N_{\rm CC,peak}^{-1/2}$. An estimate of $\ell_{\rm f}$ thus directly allows for pinning down the turbulence-driving mechanism in astrophysical systems. While the simulated conditions are mostly prevalent in the intracluster medium of galaxy clusters, the qualitative morphological features are also applicable in the context of interstellar medium in galaxies.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_04581
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Probing the Morphology of Polarized Emission Induced by Fluctuation Dynamo using Minkowski Functionals
Dutta, Riju
Sur, Sharanya
Basu, Aritra
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
The morphology and the characteristic scale of polarized structures provide crucial insights into the mechanisms that drive turbulence and maintain magnetic fields in magneto-ionic plasma. We aim to establish the efficacy of Minkowski functionals as quantitative statistical probes of filamentary morphology of polarized synchrotron emission resulting from fluctuation dynamo action. Using synthetic observations generated from magnetohydrodynamic simulations of fluctuation dynamos with varying driving scales ($\ell_{\rm f}$) of turbulence in isothermal, incompressible, and subsonic media, we study the relation between different morphological measures and their connection to fractional polarization ($p_{\rm f}$). We find that Faraday depolarization at low frequencies gives rise to small-scale polarized structures that have higher filamentarity as compared to the intrinsic structures that are comparable to $\ell_{\rm f}$. Above $\sim3\,{\rm GHz}$, the number of connected polarized structures per unit area ($N_{\rm CC, peak}$) is related to the mean $p_{\rm f}$ ($\langle p_{\rm f} \rangle$) of the emitting region as $\langle p_{\rm f}\rangle \propto N_{\rm CC, peak}^{-1/4}$, provided the scale of the detectable emitting region is larger than $\ell_{\rm f}$. This implies that $N_{\rm CC,peak}$ represents the number of turbulent cells projected on the plane of the sky and can be directly used to infer $\ell_{\rm f}$ via the relation $\ell_{\rm f} \propto N_{\rm CC,peak}^{-1/2}$. An estimate of $\ell_{\rm f}$ thus directly allows for pinning down the turbulence-driving mechanism in astrophysical systems. While the simulated conditions are mostly prevalent in the intracluster medium of galaxy clusters, the qualitative morphological features are also applicable in the context of interstellar medium in galaxies.
title Probing the Morphology of Polarized Emission Induced by Fluctuation Dynamo using Minkowski Functionals
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.04581