Attractive fields are normal all through the universe, yet they are amazingly testing to review. They don’t straightforwardly radiate or mirror endless light from up and down the electromagnetic range, but they remain the essential purveyors of astrophysical information. All things being equal, scientists have needed to track down what might be compared to grandiose iron filings—mmatter in worlds that is delicate to attractive fields and furthermore transmits light set apart by the fields’ design and force.
A group of Stanford astrophysicists has examined infrared signals from precisely such a material, magnetically aligned dust grains embedded in the cold, dense clouds of star-forming regions, in a new study that was published in The Astrophysical Journal. A correlation with light from enormous beam electrons that has been set apart by attractive fields in hotter, more diffuse material showed amazing contrasts in the deliberate attractive fields of cosmic systems.
Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez, a member of the Kavli Institute for Particle Acceleration and Cosmology (KIPAC) and an astrophysicist at Stanford, talks about the differences and what they might mean for the growth and evolution of the galaxy.
Lopez-Rodriguez moved to the Bay Area as a scientist with the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a modified Boeing 737 that carries instruments above most of the atmospheric dust and water vapor that block infrared light. Lopez-Rodriguez is originally from the Canary Islands. Before the SOFIA program finished in 2022, Lopez-Rodriguez joined Stanford, where he keeps on dissecting heritage SOFIA information as one of the key specialists of SALSA, the Overview of ExtragALactic Attraction with SOFIA.
To ensure clarity and conciseness, this interview has been edited.
Could you elaborate on your findings? What makes them so revolutionary?
The comparison of magnetic fields in various physical environments of other galaxies is the first study of its kind. In order to accomplish this, we examined fifteen distinct nearby galaxies at radio and far-infrared wavelengths. This study has two distinct principal investigators: myself for the infrared information and Sui Ann Mao at the Max Planck Organization for Radio Cosmology in Germany for the radio information.
Our gatherings tracked down two altogether different attractive fields in similar universes. Radio perceptions follow an exceptionally requested attractive field in the ionized, warm, and diffuse medium one to two kiloparsecs over the cosmic plates we considered [one kiloparsec is 3,260 light years], while far infrared light produced by attractively adjusted dust grains in the midplane of the circles shows an attractive field that is two times as tumultuous. In synopsis, regions with more noteworthy star arrangements had more grounded and turbulent attractive fields.
What do these turbulent, attractive fields tell us?
Due to star formation and molecular cloud formation, spiral arms have tangled magnetic fields, indicating high levels of turbulence and the possibility of an area where magnetic fields could be amplified. Conversely, the locales between the arms of winding universes and in the medium above and underneath the circle have very well arranged attractive fields, which demonstrates that system pivot might be playing a part in the requesting of these attractive fields.
By and large, we don’t have a clue about the job of attractive fields in cosmic system development; however, these far-infrared perceptions let us know that attractive fields are naturally connected with star-shaping regions, which is critical to world development. We don’t know for sure how they are related, but we think there might be a feedback loop between the two of them.
What follows? How might you search for the idea of the input circle?
As a result of this finding, we are now able to conduct three-dimensional research on the magnetic fields of other galaxies, which will assist us in determining how these fields affect activity during star formation and galaxy evolution.
However, in order to get a better understanding of the regions where stars are formed and to study the magnetic fields over time, we also require observations with a higher angular resolution. Fortunately, we’re now getting such information with ALMA (the Atacama Enormous Millimeter/Submillimeter Cluster). What’s more, the up-and-coming age of NASA space missions likewise incorporates similar sorts of far-infrared polarimetric perceptions we utilized, just better, to concentrate on the attractive fields in a factual example of universes.
The study involves a number of other Stanford researchers as well. How did you all meet in this place?
For my part, I worked as an instrument scientist at NASA and flew with SOFIA more than 100 times—while each flight was an adventure, it was actually too many times for me. The vast majority of the perceptions we utilized in this study I took myself with HAWC+ [the High-Goal Airborne Wideband Camera+, a far-infrared imager and polarimeter]. I was familiar with the instrument and the data, so I developed a new observing mode that reduced the observing acquisition time and sensitivity by 300 percent. This project was a perfect fit for me because I already had extensive experience working with the instrument, collecting data, and analyzing it. My research focuses on the study of galaxies’ magnetic fields.
I wanted to study science full-time after SOFIA, and KIPAC helped me get there. Particularly when I discovered that [Assistant Professor] Susan Clark was also coming here and that her research objectives were very similar to mine. We likewise have Mehrnoosh [Tahani], who concentrates on the attractive fields in the Smooth Manner in radio, Sergio [Martin-Alvarez], who does magneto-hydro-dynamic reenactments, and Alex [Alejandro S. Borlaff], who is visiting from NASA-Ames as a NASA postdoctoral individual.
We are now a unique team at Stanford with a wide range of magnetism expertise and are well-positioned to make the most of these SALSA observations for science.
More information: Alejandro S. Borlaff et al, Extragalactic Magnetism with SOFIA (SALSA Legacy Program). V. First Results on the Magnetic Field Orientation of Galaxies, The Astrophysical Journal (2023). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/acd934
