Detection of polarized mm and submm emission from SgrA*
Abstract
We report the detection of linear polarization from SgrA* at 750, 850, 1350 and 2000 microns which confirms the contribution of synchrotron radiation. From the lack of polarization at longer wavelengths it appears to arise in the millimetre/sub-millimetre excess. There are large position angle changes between the millimetre and sub-millimetre results and these are discussed in terms of a polarized dust contribution in the sub-millimetre and various synchrotron models. In the model which best explains the data the synchrotron radiation from the excess is self-absorbed in the millimetre region and becomes optically thin in the sub-millimetre. This implies that the excess arises in an extremely compact source to the order of 2 Schwarzschild radii.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0003379,
title = {Detection of polarized mm and submm emission from SgrA*},
author = {D. K. Aitken and J. S. Greaves and A. Chrysostomou and W. S. Holland and J. H. Hough and D. Pierce-Price and J. S. Richer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0003379},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
(12 pages, 1 figure, accepted by ApJ Letters)