Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006aas...20919806r&link_type=abstract
2007 AAS/AAPT Joint Meeting, American Astronomical Society Meeting 209, #198.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society,
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
1
Scientific paper
We shall present the discovery of the first extragalactic Zeeman-splitting detections seen in emission from OH megamasers. We conducted a survey of OH megamaser emission from 6 ULIRGs (including the archetypal ULIRG Arp 220) using the Arecibo 300-m telescope and measured the Zeeman effect in 16 masing regions in 4 of the 6 galaxies. These measurements suggest a typical field of about 3 mG in ULIRGs. Field reversals were seen in 3 of the galaxies and an amazing 7 Zeeman-splitting detections were found in Arp 220 alone. Our largest detected field, with a line-of-sight magnitude of 18 mG, was seen in one of only three known OH gigamasers, at a z of 0.217. Prior to these observations, Zeeman splitting had only been seen in one extragalactic source and, at that, in absorption of HI against a background source. Our results demonstrate that OH megamasers are a sensitive extragalactic magnetometer and a promising new tool for probing the astrophysics of distant galaxies. Support for this work was provided in part by the NSF through award GSSP06-0003 from the NRAO and NSF grant AST-0406987.
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