FIELDMAPS Data Release: Far-Infrared Polarization in the "Bones" of the Milky Way
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| Formato: | Preprint |
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2025
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| author | Coudé, Simon Stephens, Ian W. Myers, Philip C. Karnath, Nicole Smith, Howard A. Guzmán, Andrés Marin, Jessy Zucker, Catherine Andersson, B-G. Li, Zhi-Yun Looney, Leslie W. Novak, Giles Pillai, Thushara G. S. Sadavoy, Sarah I. Sanhueza, Patricio Soam, Archana |
| author_facet | Coudé, Simon Stephens, Ian W. Myers, Philip C. Karnath, Nicole Smith, Howard A. Guzmán, Andrés Marin, Jessy Zucker, Catherine Andersson, B-G. Li, Zhi-Yun Looney, Leslie W. Novak, Giles Pillai, Thushara G. S. Sadavoy, Sarah I. Sanhueza, Patricio Soam, Archana |
| contents | Polarization observations of the Milky Way and many other spiral galaxies have found a close correspondence between the orientation of spiral arms and magnetic field lines on scales of hundreds of parsecs. This paper presents polarization measurements at 214 $μ$m toward ten filamentary candidate ``bones" in the Milky Way using the High-resolution Airborne Wide-band Camera (HAWC+) on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). These data were taken as part of the Filaments Extremely Long and Dark: A Magnetic Polarization Survey (FIELDMAPS) and represent the first study to resolve the magnetic field in spiral arms at parsec scales. We describe the complex yet well-defined polarization structure of all ten candidate bones, and we find a mean difference and standard deviation of $-74^{\circ} \pm 32^{\circ}$ between their filament axis and the plane-of-sky magnetic field, closer to a field perpendicular to their length rather than parallel. By contrast, the 850 $μ$m polarization data from \textit{Planck} on scales greater than 10 pc show a nearly parallel mean difference of $3^{\circ} \pm 21^{\circ}$. These findings provide further evidence that magnetic fields can change orientation at the scale of dense molecular clouds, even along spiral arms. Finally, we use a power law to fit the dust polarization fraction as a function of total intensity on a cloud-by-cloud basis and find indices between $-0.6$ and $-0.9$, with a mean and standard deviation of $-0.7 \pm 0.1$. The polarization, dust temperature, and column density data presented in this work are publicly available online. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_25832 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | FIELDMAPS Data Release: Far-Infrared Polarization in the "Bones" of the Milky Way Coudé, Simon Stephens, Ian W. Myers, Philip C. Karnath, Nicole Smith, Howard A. Guzmán, Andrés Marin, Jessy Zucker, Catherine Andersson, B-G. Li, Zhi-Yun Looney, Leslie W. Novak, Giles Pillai, Thushara G. S. Sadavoy, Sarah I. Sanhueza, Patricio Soam, Archana Astrophysics of Galaxies Polarization observations of the Milky Way and many other spiral galaxies have found a close correspondence between the orientation of spiral arms and magnetic field lines on scales of hundreds of parsecs. This paper presents polarization measurements at 214 $μ$m toward ten filamentary candidate ``bones" in the Milky Way using the High-resolution Airborne Wide-band Camera (HAWC+) on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). These data were taken as part of the Filaments Extremely Long and Dark: A Magnetic Polarization Survey (FIELDMAPS) and represent the first study to resolve the magnetic field in spiral arms at parsec scales. We describe the complex yet well-defined polarization structure of all ten candidate bones, and we find a mean difference and standard deviation of $-74^{\circ} \pm 32^{\circ}$ between their filament axis and the plane-of-sky magnetic field, closer to a field perpendicular to their length rather than parallel. By contrast, the 850 $μ$m polarization data from \textit{Planck} on scales greater than 10 pc show a nearly parallel mean difference of $3^{\circ} \pm 21^{\circ}$. These findings provide further evidence that magnetic fields can change orientation at the scale of dense molecular clouds, even along spiral arms. Finally, we use a power law to fit the dust polarization fraction as a function of total intensity on a cloud-by-cloud basis and find indices between $-0.6$ and $-0.9$, with a mean and standard deviation of $-0.7 \pm 0.1$. The polarization, dust temperature, and column density data presented in this work are publicly available online. |
| title | FIELDMAPS Data Release: Far-Infrared Polarization in the "Bones" of the Milky Way |
| topic | Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.25832 |