The centre of our Milky Way harbours the closest candidate for a supermassive black hole. The source is thought to be powered by radiatively inefficient accretion of gas from its environment. This form of accretion is a standard mode of energy supply
for most galactic nuclei. X-ray measurements have already resolved a tenuous hot gas component from which it can be fed. However, the magnetization of the gas, a crucial parameter determining the structure of the accretion flow, remains unknown. Strong magnetic fields can influence the dynamics of the accretion, remove angular momentum from the infalling gas, expel matter through relativistic jets and lead to the observed synchrotron emission. Here we report multi-frequency measurements with several radio telescopes of a newly discovered pulsar close to the Galactic Centre and show that its unusually large Faraday rotation indicates a dynamically relevant magnetic field near the black hole. If this field is accreted down to the event horizon it provides enough magnetic flux to explain the observed emission from the black hole, from radio to X-rays.
A particle cascade (shower) in a dielectric, for example as initiated by an ultra-high energy cosmic ray, will have an excess of electrons which will emit coherent v{C}erenkov radiation, known as the Askaryan effect. In this work we study the case in
which such a particle shower occurs in a medium just below its surface. We show, for the first time, that the radiation transmitted through the surface is independent of the depth of the shower below the surface when observed from far away, apart from trivial absorption effects. As a direct application we use the recent results of the NuMoon project, where a limit on the neutrino flux for energies above $10^{22}$,eV was set using the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope by measuring pulsed radio emission from the Moon, to set a limit on the flux of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.
The development of cosmic ray air showers can be influenced by atmospheric electric fields. Under fair weather conditions these fields are small, but the strong fields inside thunderstorms can have a significant effect on the electromagnetic componen
t of a shower. Understanding this effect is particularly important for radio detection of air showers, since the radio emission is produced by the shower electrons and positrons. We perform Monte Carlo simulations to calculate the effects of different electric field configurations on the shower development. We find that the electric field becomes important for values of the order of 1 kV/cm. Not only can the energy distribution of electrons and positrons change significantly for such field strengths, it is also possible that runaway electron breakdown occurs at high altitudes, which is an important effect in lightning initiation.
This article presents results of VLBI observations of regions of H2O maser activity in the Local Group galaxies M33 and IC10. Since all position measurements were made relative to extragalactic background sources, the proper motions of the two galaxi
es could be measured. For M33, this provides this galaxys three dimensional velocity, showing that this galaxy is moving with a velocity of 190 +/- 59 kms relative to the Milky Way. For IC10, we obtain a motion of 215 +/- 42 km/s relative to the Milky Way. These measurements promise a new handle on dynamical models for the Local Group and the mass and dark matter halo of Andromeda and the Milky Way.
