English

Magnetic field strength in cosmic web filaments

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2022-02-23 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

We used the Rotation Measure (RM) catalogue derived from the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey Data Release 2 (LoTSS DR2) at 144-MHz to measure the evolution with redshift of the extragalactic RM (RRM: Residual RM) and the polarization fraction (pp) of sources in low density environments. We also measured the same at 1.4-GHz by cross-matching with the NRAO VLA Sky Survey RM catalogue. We find that RRM versus redshift is flat at 144-MHz, but, once redshift-corrected, it shows evolution at high significance. Also pp evolves with redshift with a decrement by a factor of \sim8 at z2z\sim2. Comparing the 144-MHz and 1.4-GHz data, we find that the observed RRM and pp are most likely to have an origin local to the source at 1.4-GHz, while a cosmic web filament origin is favoured at 144-MHz. If we attribute the entire signal to filaments, we infer a mean rest frame RRM per filament of RRM_{0,f} = 0.71 \pm 0.07 rad m^{-2} and a magnetic field per filament of B_f = 32 \pm 3 nG. This is in agreement with estimates obtained with a complementary method based on synchrotron emission stacking, and with cosmological simulations if primordial magnetic fields are amplified by astrophysical source field seeding. The measurement of an RRM_{0,f} supports the presence of diffuse baryonic gas in filaments. We also estimated a conservative upper limit of the filament magnetic turbulence of \sigma_{ RRM_{0,f}} =0.039 \pm 0.001 rad m^{-2}, concluding that the ordered magnetic field component dominates in filaments.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2202.04607,
  title  = {Magnetic field strength in cosmic web filaments},
  author = {E. Carretti and V. Vacca and S. P. O'Sullivan and G. H. Heald and C. Horellou and H. J. A. Rottgering and A. M. M. Scaife and T. W. Shimwell and A. Shulevski and C. Stuardi and T. Vernstrom},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.04607},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication on MNRAS