No Arabic abstract
Linearly polarized Galactic synchrotron emission provides valuable information about the properties of the Galactic magnetic field and the interstellar magneto-ionic medium, when Faraday rotation along the line of sight is properly taken into account. We aim to survey the Galactic plane at 6 cm including linear polarization. At such a short wavelength Faraday rotation effects are in general small and the Galactic magnetic field properties can be probed to larger distances than at long wavelengths. The Urumqi 25-m telescope is used for a sensitive 6 cm survey in total and polarized intensities. WMAP K-band (22.8 GHz) polarization data are used to restore the absolute zero-level of the Urumqi U and Q maps by extrapolation. Total intensity and polarization maps are presented for a Galactic plane region of 129 degree < l < 230 degree and |b| < 5 degree in the anti-centre with an angular resolution of 95 and an average sensitivity of 0.6 mK and 0.4 mK Tb in total and polarized intensity, respectively. We briefly discuss the properties of some extended Faraday Screens detected in the 6 cm polarization maps. The Sino-German 6 cm polarization survey provides new information about the properties of the magnetic ISM. The survey also adds valuable information for discrete Galactic objects and is in particular suited to detect extended Faraday Screens with large rotation measures hosting strong regular magnetic fields.
(Abridged) We have conducted a total intensity and polarization survey of the Galactic plane at 6 cm using the Urumqi 25 m telescope for the Galactic longitude range of 10 deg<l<60 deg and the Galactic latitude range of |b|<5 deg. Missing absolute zero levels of Stokes U and Q maps were restored by extrapolating the WMAP five-year K-band polarization data. For total intensities we recovered missing large-scale components by referring to the Effelsberg 11 cm survey. Total intensity and polarization maps are presented with an angular resolution of 9.5 arcmin and a sensitivity of 1 mK and 0.5 mK in total and polarized intensity, respectively. The 6 cm polarized emission in the Galactic plane originates within about 4 kpc distance, which increases for polarized emission out of the plane. The polarization map shows patches, canals and voids with no correspondence in total intensity. We attribute the patches to turbulent magnetic field cells. Canals are caused by abrupt variation of polarization angles at the boundaries of patches rather than by foreground Faraday Screens. The superposition of foreground and Faraday Screen rotated background emission almost cancels polarized emission locally, so that polarization voids appear. By modelling the voids, we estimate the Faraday Screens regular magnetic field along the line-of-sight to be larger than about 8 microG. We separated thermal (free-free) and non-thermal (synchrotron) emission according to their different spectral indices. The spectral index for the synchrotron emission was based on WMAP polarization data. The fraction of thermal emission at 6 cm is about 60% in the plane.
We have finished the 6cm polarization survey of the Galactic plane using the Urumqi 25m radio telescope. It covers 10deg<l<230deg in Galactic longitude and |b| <5deg in Galactic latitude. The new polarization maps not only reveal new properties of the diffuse magnetized interstellar medium, but also are very useful for studying individual objects such as Hii regions, which may act as Faraday screens with strong regular magnetic fields inside, and supernova remnants for their polarization properties and spectra. The high sensitivity of the survey enables us to discover two new SNRs G178.2-4.2 and G25.3-2.1 and a number of Hii regions.
We study the spectral and polarization properties of supernova remnants (SNRs) based on our 6cm survey data. The observations were taken from the Sino-German 6cm polarization survey of the Galactic plane. By using the integrated flux densities at 6cm together with measurements at other wavelengths from the literature we derive the global spectra of 50 SNRs. In addition, we use the observations at 6cm to present the polarization images of 24 SNRs. We derived integrated flux densities at 6cm for 51 small SNRs with angular sizes less than 1 degree. Global radio spectral indices were obtained in all the cases except for Cas A. For SNRs G15.1-1.6, G16.2-2.7, G16.4-0.5, G17.4-2.3, G17.8-2.6, G20.4+0.1, G36.6+2.6, G43.9+1.6, G53.6-2.2, G55.7+3.4, G59.8+1.2, G68.6-1.2, and G113.0+0.2, the spectra have been significantly improved. From our analysis we argue that the object G16.8-1.1 is probably an HII region instead of a SNR. Cas A shows a secular decrease in total intensity, and we measured a flux density of 688+/-35 Jy at 6cm between 2004 and 2008. Polarized emission from 25 SNRs were detected. For G16.2-2.7, G69.7+1.0, G84.2-0.8 and G85.9-0.6, the polarized emission is detected for the first time confirming them as SNRs. High frequency observations of SNRs are rare but important to establish their spectra and trace them in polarization in particular towards the inner Galaxy where Faraday effects are important.
Large-scale radio continuum surveys provide data to get insights into the physical properties of radio sources. HII regions are prominent radio sources produced by thermal emission of ionised gas around young massive stars. We identify and analyse HII regions in the Sino-German 6cm polarisation survey of the Galactic plane. Objects with flat radio continuum spectra together with infrared and/or Halpha emission were identified as HII regions. For HII regions with small apparent sizes, we cross-matched the 6cm small-diameter source catalogue with the radio HII region catalogue compiled by Paladini and the infrared HII region catalogue based on the WISE data. Extended HII regions were identified by eye by overlaying the Paladini and the WISE HII regions onto the 6cm survey images for coincidences. The TT-plot method was employed for spectral index verification. A total of 401 HII regions were identified and their flux densities were determined with the Sino-German 6cm survey data. In the surveyed area, 76 pairs of sources are found to be duplicated in the Paladini HII region catalogue, mainly due to the non-distinction of previous observations with different angular resolutions, and 78 objects in their catalogue are misclassified as HII regions, being actually planetary nebulae, supernova remnants or extragalactic sources that have steep spectra. More than 30 HII regions and HII region candidates from our 6cm survey data, especially extended ones, do not have counterparts in the WISE HII region catalogue, of which 9 are identified for the first time. Based on the newly derived radio continuum spectra and the evidence of infrared emission, the previously identified SNRs G11.1-1.0, G20.4+0.1 and G16.4-0.5 are believed to be HII regions.
We present early results from the JCMT Plane Survey (JPS), which has surveyed the northern inner Galactic plane between longitudes l=7 and l=63 degrees in the 850-{mu}m continuum with SCUBA-2, as part of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope Legacy Survey programme. Data from the l=30 degree survey region, which contains the massive star-forming regions W43 and G29.96, are analysed after approximately 40% of the observations had been completed. The pixel-to-pixel noise is found to be 19 mJy/beam, after a smooth over the beam area, and the projected equivalent noise levels in the final survey are expected to be around 10 mJy/beam. An initial extraction of compact sources was performed using the FellWalker method resulting in the detection of 1029 sources above a 5-{sigma} surface-brightness threshold. The completeness limits in these data are estimated to be around 0.2 Jy/beam (peak flux density) and 0.8 Jy (integrated flux density) and are therefore probably already dominated by source confusion in this relatively crowded section of the survey. The flux densities of extracted compact sources are consistent with those of matching detections in the shallower ATLASGAL survey. We analyse the virial and evolutionary state of the detected clumps in the W43 star-forming complex and find that they appear younger than the Galactic-plane average.