2024/09/18 by Peng, Sijia, Lu, Ru-Sen, Goddi, Ciriaco +9
#Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2409.12028
Faraday rotation is an important probe of the magnetic fields and magnetized plasma around active galactic nuclei (AGN) jets. We present a Faraday rotation measure image of the M87 jet between 85.2 GHz and 101.3 GHz with a resolution of ~2" with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). We found that the rotation measure (RM) of the M87 core is \rm (4.5± 0.4)×104 rad m-2 with a low linear polarization fraction of \rm (0.88± 0.08)%. The spatial RM gradient in the M87 jet spans a wide range from ∼ -2×104\rm~rad m-2 to ∼ 3×104\rm~rad m-2 with a typical uncertainty of 0.3×104\rm~rad m-2. A comparison with previous RM measurements of the core suggests that the Faraday rotation of the core may originate very close to the super massive black hole (SMBH). Both an internal origin and an external screen with a rapidly varying emitting source could be possible. As for the jet, the RM gradient indicates a helical configuration of the magnetic field that persists up to kpc scale. Combined with the kpc-scale RM measurements at lower frequencies, we found that RM is frequency-dependent in the jet. One possible scenario to explain this dependence is that the kpc-scale jet has a trumpet-like shape and the jet coil unwinds near its end.