2008/10/07 by L. Rudnick, Lawrence Rudnick, Shea Brown
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Cosmic microwave background #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Interferometry #Milky Way #Optics #Physics #Polarization (electrochemistry) #Position angle #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #Sky #Supernova #Supernova remnant #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0004-6256/137/1/145
published as Astronomical Journal 137 (2009) 145-156 · Accepted for publication, Astronomical Journal
arxiv created 2008/10/07 · openalex publication_date 2008/12/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We have developed a method for recovering polarization structures from the NRAO Very Large Array Sky Survey (NVSS) on larger angular scales than the nominal 15 arcmin survey limit. The technique depends on the existence of smaller-scale fluctuations in the polarization angle, to which the interferometer is sensitive, while the undetected total intensity of the structures can be arbitrarily large. We recover the large-scale structure of the polarized Milky Way, as seen in single-dish surveys, as well as a wide variety of smaller-scale Galactic and extragalactic features. We present a brief discussion of the uncertainties and limitations of the reprocessed NVSS polarization survey, a comparison of single-dish and NVSS results, and a sampling of the new polarization structures. We show a companion feature 1.8 Mpc outside of Abell cluster 3744, apparent Mpc-scale extensions to the tailed radio galaxy 3C31, a possible new giant Galactic loop, and a new bright polarized patch in supernova remnant CTA1. We note that there is little quantitative information from these detections, and follow-up investigations would be necessary to measure reliable polarized fluxes and position angles. Some of the new features discovered in this NVSS reanalysis could provide a foreground for cosmic microwave background polarization studies, but the internal foreground modeling for the next generation of experiments should have no difficulty accounting for them.