Turbulent magnetic field in the HII region Sh 2-27

Abstract

Magnetic fields in the turbulent interstellar medium (ISM) are a key element in understanding Galactic dynamics, but there are many observational challenges. One useful probe for studying the magnetic field component parallel to the line of sight (LoS) is Faraday rotation of linearly polarized radio synchrotron emission, combined with H$\alpha$ observations. HII regions are the perfect laboratories to probe such magnetic fields as they are localized in space, and are well-defined sources often with known distances and measurable electron densities. We chose the HII region Sharpless 2-27 (Sh 2-27). By using a map of the magnetic field strength along the LoS ($B_{\parallel }$) for the first time, we investigate the basic statistical properties of the turbulent magnetic field inside Sh 2-27. We study the scaling of the magnetic field fluctuations, compare it to the Kolmogorov scaling, and attempt to find an outer scale of the turbulent magnetic field fluctuations. We estimate the median value of $n_e$ as $7.3\pm 0.1$ cm${}^{-3}$, and the median value of $B_{\parallel }$ as $-4.5\pm 0.1$ $\mu$G, which is comparable to the magnetic field strength in diffuse ISM. The slope of the structure function of the estimated $B_{\parallel }$-map is found to be slightly steeper than Kolmogorov, consistent with our Gaussian-random-field $B_{\parallel }$ simulations revealing that an input Kolmogorov slope in the magnetic field results in a somewhat steeper slope in $B_{\parallel }$. These results suggest that the lower limit to the outer scale of turbulence is 10 pc in the HII region, which is comparable to the size of the computation domain. This may indicate that the turbulence probed here could actually be cascading from the larger scales in the ambient medium, associated with the interstellar turbulence in the general ISM, which is illuminated by the presence of Sh 2-27.

arXiv comment14 pages, 11 figures. Accepted by A&A

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