3C273 polarization over ALMA 1.3mm band Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Hovatta T.
  2. O'Sullivan S.
  3. Marti-Vidal I.
  4. Savolainen T.
  5. Tchekhovskoy A.
  6. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

We studied the polarization behavior of the quasar 3C 273 over the 1mm wavelength band at ALMA with a total bandwidth of 7.5GHz across 223-243GHz at 0.8" resolution, corresponding to 2.1kpc at the distance of 3C 273. With these observations we were able to probe the optically thin polarized emission close to the jet base, and constrain the magnetic field structure. We computed the Faraday rotation measure using simple linear fitting and Faraday rotation measure synthesis. In addition, we modeled the broadband behavior of the fractional Stokes Q and U parameters (qu-fitting). The systematic uncertainties in the polarization observations at ALMA were assessed through Monte Carlo simulations. We find the unresolved core of 3C 273 to be 1.8% linearly polarized. We detect a very high rotation measure (RM) of (5.0+/-0.3)x10^5^rad/m^2^ over the 1 mm band when assuming a single polarized component and an external RM screen. This results in a rotation of >40{deg} of the intrinsic electric vector position angle, which is significantly higher than typically assumed for millimeter wavelengths. The polarization fraction increases as a function of wavelength, which according to our qu-fitting could be due to multiple polarized components of different Faraday depth within our beam or to internal Faraday rotation. With our limited wavelength coverage we cannot distinguish between the cases, and additional multifrequency and high angular resolution observations are needed to determine the location and structure of the magnetic field of the Faraday active region. Comparing our RM estimate with values obtained at lower frequencies, the RM increases as a function of observing frequency, following a power law with an index of 2.0+/-0.2, consistent with a sheath surrounding a conically expanding jet. We also detect ~0.2% circular polarization, although further observations are needed to confirm this result.

Keywords
  1. quasars
  2. polarimetry
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2019A&A...623A.111H
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/623/A111
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/623/A111
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.36230111

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History

2019-03-12T08:08:39Z
Resource record created
2019-03-12T08:08:39Z
Created
2019-03-26T14:38:18Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr