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Spontaneous Discontinuities in Galactic Magnetic Fields and the Creation of Galactic X-ray Halos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2016

E. N. Parker
E. N. Parker*
Affiliation:
Laboratory for Astrophysics University of Chicago 933 East 56th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA

Abstract

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The magnetic field in the gaseous disk of the galaxy is dynamically unstable to undulations with wavelengths of the order of 1 kpc. The elevated portions of the field are subject to rapid inflation (~ 50 km/sec) by the cosmic rays produced within the gaseous disk. The result is a magnetic halo of 1–3 × 10−6 gauss, composed of close packed bipolar lobes of field extending outward from the surface of the disk to distances of several kpc. The inflation is presumably irregular, producing tangential discontinuities (current sheets) throughout the extended bipolar fields. A major portion of the magnetic energy is dissipated by rapid reconnection at these current sheets, heating the tenuous halo gas to temperatures of 106 − 107 °K and producing the X-ray emission observed from the halos of many spiral galaxies.

Type
4. Magnetohydrodynamics of Galactic Magnetic Fields
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 140: Galactic and Intergalactic Magnetic Fields , 1990 , pp. 169 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1990 

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