Magnetism KSP

Status & Plans

June 2012

Rainer Beck

MKSP science goals

Diffuse polarized emission from the Milky Way and RMs: Properties of the magnetic ISM in the Milky Way

Faraday Rotation Measures (RMs) of pulsars: Structure of the Galactic magnetic field Total and polarized emission and RMs from the outer disks and halos of nearby galaxies: Origin of magnetic fields and CR propagation Total and polarized emission and RMs from galaxy groups RMs from intergalactic filaments

Polarization from giant radio galaxies

Polarization from stellar jets

Number of members: 85 Number of countries: 14 Members from institutes in Germany: 38 (45%) Netherlands: 11 UK: 11 Poland: 8 Sweden: 5 Italy: 3 France: 2 Others: 7

MKSP members

Management Team:

R. Beck (MPIfR, PI), J.A. Anderson (MPIfR)

G. Heald (ASTRON), A. Scaife (Southampton)

Workshops and Busy Weeks 2011/12

11th MKSP Workshop Bologna 24-25 Nov 2011

12th MKSP Workshop Gothenburg 29 May – 1 June 2012

5th Polarisation Busy Week Dwingeloo 23-27 Jan 2012

DFG Research Unit Workshop on galaxy clusters Tautenburg 11-14 Dec 2011 DFG Research Unit Workshop on galaxies Bonn 21-23 March 2012

MKSP "Reserved Access" proposal (submitted on 5 March 2012)

MKSP "Reserved Access" proposal (Tier 1 and 2: jointly with Survey KSP)

Tier 1 depth is sufficient for galaxy survey in TP

Tier 2 depth is probably sufficient for deep galaxy obs in pol

SKSP proposal plan for Cycle 0 ("Tier 0")

10 nearby galaxies

to be observed

by the MKSP

Feedback on the MKSP "Reserved Access" proposal

Scientific rating: very good

Technical report on MKSP proposal: Concerns on polarization calibration

High processing requirements

Thermal noise cannot be reached in the near future

Level of polarized emission uncertain

Assignments of "Reserved Access" time

to the MKSP for Cycle 0

Available: 2409h observation time GLOW: 17% = 410h, 78h assigned to MKSP

LOFAR:NL: 58% = 1397h, 50h assigned to MKSP

LOFAR:UK: 5% =120h, 6h assigned to MKSP

LOFAR:Sweden: 5% = 120h, 12h assigned to MKSP FLOW: 5% = 120h, 5h assigned to MKSP

Total: 151h Processing time: 176h (real processing times will be larger)

MKSP commissioning

Total number of MKSP commissioners: ≈30 (22 students)

LOFAR data are crucial for 10 PhD students

7 students funded by the DFG Research Unit on Magnetism

16 MKSP members participated in MSSS data inspection

Coordination: Andreas Horneffer (DFG-funded postdoc at MPIfR)

RMs of pulsars (A. Noutsos, C. Sobey)

Beam-forming mode RMs agree with known values (except for the signs) Strong polarized fluxes, can be used as pol calibrators

Beam = 51“x37“‚ rms noise 2.5 mJy (≈ 25x thermal)

NGC4631: map from 77 SBs (W. Jurusik)

1.4 GHz, WSRT, Braun et al. 2007, A&A,461,455

1.4 GHz, VLA, Beck, unpubl.

MKSP commissioning: M51 field (6h HBA) (see talk by David Mulcahy)

Only core stations (≤ 6 km) could be used

Noise is about 15x thermal noise

MKSP: progress

Extended total emission from nearby galaxies (D. Mulcahy, W. Jurusik, R. Drzazga)

RM Synthesis (M.R. Bell, H. Junklewitz)

Polarized signals from 20 pulsars (C. Sobey, A. Noutsos, M. Kuniyoshi)

Extended polarized emission from the Milky Way (Fan region, A2255 region) (M. Iacobelli, E. Orru, R. Pizzo)

Extended polarized emission from a giant radio galaxy (E. Orru)

Dual-beam calibration strategy developed (D. Mulcahy, A. Horneffer, G. Heald)

Correction of ionospheric Faraday rotation with pulsars (C. Sotomayor, C. Sobey)

MKSP issues: technical

Calibration in pol is even more difficult than in Stokes I

(station beams, instrumental pol, ionosphere, ...)

→ No extended polarization from galaxies detected so far

Noise in pol increases strongly with decreasing elevation:

no sources below ~ +30° DEC should be observed

Processing power is insufficient to image large fields

Additional storage and processing power needed

MKSP issues: general

More dedicated commissioners needed

More software developers needed

Science data emerge slowly Polarization calibration not ready

Can we obtain images reaching thermal noise?

MKSP minimum request: rms 2x thermal

DFG funding

Research Unit FOR 1254:

Magnetisation of Interstellar and Intergalactic Media - The Prospects of Low-Frequency Radio Observations

Speaker: Uli Klein, Univ. Bonn

Vice Speaker: Rainer Beck, MPIfR Bonn

Further project leaders: M. Brüggen, R.-J. Dettmar, D. Elstner,

T. Enßlin, M. Hoeft, A. Noutsos, H. Lesch

Funded positions (June 2010 – June 2013): 10 PhD + 2 postdocs

Application for extension 2013 - 2016 will be submitted soon,

review expected in Sept 2012