CONTINUUM HALOS IN NEARBY GALAXIES: AN EVLA SURVEY (CHANG-ES). I. INTRODUCTION TO THE SURVEY

Journal Article · Wed Aug 15 00:00:00 EDT 2012 · Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/144/2/43· OSTI ID:22034390

Irwin, Judith; Henriksen, Richard N ^[1]; Beck, Rainer; Krause, Marita; Mora, Silvia Carolina; Schmidt, Philip ^[2]; Benjamin, R A ^[3]; Dettmar, Ralf-Juergen; Miskolczi, Arpad ^[4]; English, Jayanne ^[5]; Heald, George; Oosterloo, Tom ^[6]; Johnson, Megan ^[7]; Li, Jiang-Tao ^[8]; Murphy, E J ^[9]; Porter, Troy A ^[10]; Rand, Richard J ^[11]; Saikia, D J ^[12]; Strong, A W ^[13]; Walterbos, Rene ^[14] ; others, and

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1. Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6 (Canada)
2. Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie, Auf dem Huegel 69, 53121 Bonn (Germany)
3. Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, 800 West Main Street, Whitewater, WI 53190 (United States)
4. Astronomisches Institut, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum, 44780 Bochum (Germany)
5. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2 (Canada)
6. Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), Postbus 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo (Netherlands)
7. National Radio Astronomy Observatory, P.O. Box 2, Greenbank, WV 24944 (United States)
8. Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, 710 North Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA 01003 (United States)
9. Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States)
10. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, Stanford University, 452 Lomita Mall, Stanford, CA 94305 (United States)
11. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Mexico, 800 Yale Boulevard, NE, Albuquerque, NM 87131 (United States)
12. National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, TIFR, Pune University Campus, Post Bag 3, Pune 411 007 (India)
13. Max-Planck-Institut fuer extraterrestrische Physik, Garching bei Muenchen (Germany)
14. Department of Astronomy, New Mexico State University, P.O. Box 30001, MSC 4500, Las Cruces, NM 88003 (United States)

We introduce a new survey to map the radio continuum halos of a sample of 35 edge-on spiral galaxies at 1.5 GHz and 6 GHz in all polarization products. The survey is exploiting the new wide bandwidth capabilities of the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (i.e., the Expanded Very Large Array) in a variety of array configurations (B, C, and D) in order to compile the most comprehensive data set yet obtained for the study of radio halo properties. This is the first survey of radio halos to include all polarization products. In this first paper, we outline the scientific motivation of the survey, the specific science goals, and the expected improvements in noise levels and spatial coverage from the survey. Our goals include investigating the physical conditions and origin of halos, characterizing cosmic-ray transport and wind speed, measuring Faraday rotation and mapping the magnetic field, probing the in-disk and extraplanar far-infrared-radio continuum relation, and reconciling non-thermal radio emission with high-energy gamma-ray models. The sample size allows us to search for correlations between radio halos and other properties, including environment, star formation rate, and the presence of active galactic nuclei. In a companion paper (Paper II) we outline the data reduction steps and present the first results of the survey for the galaxy, NGC 4631.

• OSTI ID: 22034390
• Journal Information: Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online), Vol. 144, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1538-3881
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ASTRONOMY
ASTROPHYSICS
CORRELATIONS
COSMIC PHOTONS
FARADAY EFFECT
GALAXIES
GALAXY NUCLEI
GAMMA RADIATION
GHZ RANGE
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAPPING
MAPS
NOISE
PHOTON EMISSION
POLARIZATION
STARS