The Galactic Faraday depth sky revisited

Abstract

Context. The Galactic Faraday depth sky is a tracer for both the Galactic magnetic field and the thermal electron distribution. It was previously reconstructed from polarimetric measurements of extra-Galactic point sources. Aims. Here we improve on these works by using an updated inference algorithm and by taking into account the electron emission measure as traced by free–free emission measured by the Planck survey. In the future the data situation will improve drastically thanks to the next generation Faraday rotation measurements from the SKA and its pathfinders. Anticipating this, a further aim of this paper is to update the map reconstruction method with some of the latest developments in Bayesian imaging. Methods. To this end we made use of information field theory, an inference scheme that is particularly powerful in cases of noisy and incomplete data. Results. We demonstrate the validity of the new algorithm by applying it to an existing data compilation. Even though we used exactly the same data set, a number of novel findings are made; for example, a non-parametric reconstruction of an overall amplitude field resembles the free–free emission measure map of the Galaxy. Folding this emission measure map into the analysis provides more detailed predictions. The joint inference enables us to identify regions with deviations from the assumed correlations between the emission measure and Faraday data, thereby pointing us to Galactic structures with distinguishably different physics. We find evidence for an alignment of the magnetic field within the lines of sight along both directions of the Orion arm.