The galactic magnetic field in the quasar 3C216

Abstract

Multifrequency polarimetric observations made with the Very Long Baseline Array of the quasar 3C216 reveal the presence of Faraday rotation measures (RMs) in excess of 2000 rad/m**2 in the source rest frame, in the arc of emission located at ~ 140 mas from the core. Rotation measures in the range -300 - +300 rad/m**2 are detected in the inner 5 mas (~30 parsecs). while the rotation measures near the core can be explained as due to a magnetic field in the narrow line region, we favor the interpretation for the high RM in the arc as due to a ``local'' Faraday screen, produced in a shock where the jet is deflected by the interstellar medium of the host galaxy. Our results indicate that a galacit magnetic field of the order of 50 microGauss on a scale greater than 100 pc must be present in the galactic medium.

23 pages, 3 tables, 11 figures. To appear on The Astronomical Journal, November 1999 Issue

References in corpus (1)

• Evidence for Ordered Magnetic Fields in the Quasar Environment

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Milestones in the Observations of Cosmic Magnetic Fields
• Polarization Signatures of Kink Instabilities in the Blazar Emission Region from Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations
• Polarization asymmetry in CSS sources: evidence of AGN fuel?
• Broadband radio polarimetry of Fornax A, I: Depolarized patches generated by advected thermal material from NGC 1316
• Dominance of outflowing electric currents on decaparsec to kiloparsec scales in extragalactic jets
• High Frequency VLBI Rotation Measure of 8 AGN
• Radio Polarimetry of 3C119, 3C318, and 3C343 at milliarcsecond resolution
• Milli-arcsecond scale Rotation Measure in the CSS Quasars 0548+165 and 1524-136
• VLBA polarimetric observations of the CSS quasar 3C147
• Probing Helical Magnetic Fields in AGN by Rotation Measure Gradients Studies