Magnetic Fields in the Center of the Perseus Cluster

Abstract

We present Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) observations of the nucleus of NGC 1275, the central, dominant galaxy in the Perseus cluster of galaxies. These are the first observations to resolve the linearly polarized emission from 3C84, and from them we determine a Faraday rotation measure (RM) ranging from 6500 to 7500 rad/m^2 across the tip of the bright southern jet component. At 22 GHz some polarization is also detected from the central parsec of 3C84, indicating the presence of even more extreme RMs that depolarize the core at lower frequencies. The nature of the Faraday screen is most consistent with being produced by magnetic fields associated with the optical filaments of ionized gas in the Perseus Cluster.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Cited by in corpus (6)

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