Stars, Interstellar Medium and the Galaxy Commons^™

A New System Of Parallel Isolated Nonthermal Filaments Near The Galactic Center: Evidence For A Local Magnetic Field Gradient, Ted N. La Rosa, Joseph W. Lazio, Nasir E. Kassim

Faculty and Research Publications

We report the discovery of a system of isolated nonthermal filaments approximately 0fdg5 northwest (75 pc in projection) of Sgr A. Unlike other isolated nonthermal filaments which show subfilamentation, braiding of subfilaments, and flaring at their ends, these filaments are simple linear structures and more closely resemble the parallel bundled filaments in the Galactic center radio arc. However, the most unusual feature of these filaments is that the 20/90 cm spectral index uniformly decreases as a function of length, in contrast to all other nonthermal filaments in the Galactic center. This spectral gradient may not be due to simple particle …