Magnetic fields in the Milky Way are present on a wide variety of sizes and strengths, influencing many processes in the Galactic ecosystem such as star formation, gas dynamics, jets, and evolution of supernova remnants or pulsar wind nebulae. Observ
ation methods are complex and indirect; the most used of these are a grid of rotation measures of unresolved polarized extragalactic sources, and broadband polarimetry of diffuse emission. Current studies of magnetic fields in the Milky Way reveal a global spiral magnetic field with a significant turbulent component; the limited sample of magnetic field measurements in discrete objects such as supernova remnants and HII regions shows a wide variety in field configurations; a few detections of magnetic fields in Young Stellar Object jets have been published; and the magnetic field structure in the Galactic Center is still under debate. The SKA will unravel the 3D structure and configurations of magnetic fields in the Milky Way on sub-parsec to galaxy scales, including field structure in the Galactic Center. The global configuration of the Milky Way disk magnetic field, probed through pulsar RMs, will resolve controversy about reversals in the Galactic plane. Characteristics of interstellar turbulence can be determined from the grid of background RMs. We expect to learn to understand magnetic field structures in protostellar jets, supernova remnants, and other discrete sources, due to the vast increase in sample sizes possible with the SKA. This knowledge of magnetic fields in the Milky Way will not only be crucial in understanding of the evolution and interaction of Galactic structures, but will also help to define and remove Galactic foregrounds for a multitude of extragalactic and cosmological studies.
We employ an analytical model that incorporates both wavelength-dependent and wavelength-independent depolarization to describe radio polarimetric observations of polarization at $lambda lambda lambda , 3.5, 6.2, 20.5$ cm in M51 (NGC 5194). The aim i
s to constrain both the regular and turbulent magnetic field strengths in the disk and halo, modeled as a two- or three-layer magneto-ionic medium, via differential Faraday rotation and internal Faraday dispersion, along with wavelength-independent depolarization arising from turbulent magnetic fields. A reduced chi-squared analysis is used for the statistical comparison of predicted to observed polarization maps to determine the best-fit magnetic field configuration at each of four radial rings spanning $2.4 - 7.2$ kpc in $1.2$ kpc increments. We find that a two-layer modeling approach provides a better fit to the observations than a three-layer model, where the near and far sides of the halo are taken to be identical, although the resulting best-fit magnetic field strengths are comparable. This implies that all of the signal from the far halo is depolarized at these wavelengths. We find a total magnetic field in the disk of approximately $18~mu$G and a total magnetic field strength in the halo of $sim 4-6~mu$G. Both turbulent and regular magnetic field strengths in the disk exceed those in the halo by a factor of a few. About half of the turbulent magnetic field in the disk is anisotropic, but in the halo all turbulence is only isotropic.
This chapter presents a review of observational studies to determine the magnetic field in the Milky Way, both in the disk and in the halo, focused on recent developments and on magnetic fields in the diffuse interstellar medium. I discuss some termi
nology which is confusingly or inconsistently used and try to summarize current status of our knowledge on magnetic field configurations and strengths in the Milky Way. Although many open questions still exist, more and more conclusions can be drawn on the large-scale and small-scale components of the Galactic magnetic field. The chapter is concluded with a brief outlook to observational projects in the near future.
Depolarization of diffuse radio synchrotron emission is classified in terms of wavelength-independent and wavelength-dependent depolarization in the context of regular magnetic fields and of both isotropic and anisotropic turbulent magnetic fields. P
revious analytical formulas for depolarization due to differential Faraday rotation are extended to include internal Faraday dispersion concomitantly, for a multilayer synchrotron emitting and Faraday rotating magneto-ionic medium. In particular, depolarization equations for a two- and three-layer system (disk-halo, halo-disk-halo) are explicitly derived. To both serve as a `users guide to the theoretical machinery and as an approach for disentangling line-of-sight depolarization contributions in face-on galaxies, the analytical framework is applied to data from a small region in the face-on grand-design spiral galaxy M51. The effectiveness of the multiwavelength observations in constraining the pool of physical depolarization scenarios is illustrated for a two- and three-layer model along with a Faraday screen system for an observationally motivated magnetic field configuration.
Rotation Measure synthesis (RM synthesis) of the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) observations at 2 m wavelength of the FAN region at l=137deg, b=+7deg shows the morphology of structures in the ionized interstellar medium. We interpret the
diffuse polarized synchrotron emission in terms of coherent structures in the interstellar medium and the properties of the interstellar magnetic field. For the first time, cross-correlation is applied to identify and characterize polarized structures in Faraday depth space. Complementary information about the medium are derived from H$alpha$ emission, properties of nearby pulsars, and optical polarized starlight measurements. Three morphological patterns are recognized, showing structures on scales from degrees down to the beam size. At low Faraday depth values, a low gradient across the imaged field is detected, almost aligned with the Galactic plane. Power spectra of polarized structures in Faraday depth space provide evidence of turbulence. A sign reversal in Faraday depth space indicates a reversal of the magnetic field component along the line of sight, from towards the observer and nearby to away from the observer at larger distances. The distance to the nearby, extended component is estimated to be lesser than 100 pc, which suggests that this structure corresponds to the Local Bubble wall. For the circular component, various physical interpretations are discussed. The most likely explanation is that the circular component seems to be the presence of a nearby (about 200 pc away) relic Stromgren sphere, associated with an old unidentified white dwarf star and expanding in a low-density environment.
The interstellar medium of the Milky Way is multi-phase, magnetized and turbulent. Turbulence in the interstellar medium produces a global cascade of random gas motions, spanning scales ranging from 100 parsecs to 1000 kilometres. Fundamental paramet
ers of interstellar turbulence such as the sonic Mach number (the speed of sound) have been difficult to determine because observations have lacked the sensitivity and resolution to directly image the small-scale structure associated with turbulent motion. Observations of linear polarization and Faraday rotation in radio emission from the Milky Way have identified unusual polarized structures that often have no counterparts in the total radiation intensity or at other wavelengths, and whose physical significance has been unclear. Here we report that the gradient of the Stokes vector (Q,U), where Q and U are parameters describing the polarization state of radiation, provides an image of magnetized turbulence in diffuse ionized gas, manifested as a complex filamentary web of discontinuities in gas density and magnetic field. Through comparison with simulations, we demonstrate that turbulence in the warm ionized medium has a relatively low sonic Mach number, M_s <~ 2. The development of statistical tools for the analysis of polarization gradients will allow accurate determinations of the Mach number, Reynolds number and magnetic field strength in interstellar turbulence over a wide range of conditions.
Magnetic fields on a range of scales play a large role in the ecosystems of galaxies, both in the galactic disk and in the extended layers of gas away from the plane. Observing magnetic field strength, structure and orientation is complex, and necess
arily indirect. Observational data of magnetic fields in the halo of the Milky Way are scarce, and non-conclusive about the large-scale structure of the field. In external galaxies, various large-scale configurations of magnetic fields are measured, but many uncertainties about exact configurations and their origin remain. There is a strong interaction between magnetic fields and other components in the interstellar medium such as ionized and neutral gas and cosmic rays. The energy densities of these components are comparable on large scales, indicating that magnetic fields are not passive tracers but that magnetic field feedback on the other interstellar medium components needs to be taken into account.
