Galactic Magnetism

Mapping the magnetic field of the Galaxy with good accuracy would open the door to making unprecedented progress in fields ranging from the astrophysics and particle physics of the highest-energy particles known, to inflationary B-modes at the dawn of the Universe, to the mechanisms that mitigate the formation of stars.  Our group is pursuing many different avenues to take local, tomographic measurements of the strength and direction of the magnetic field in interstellar clouds, and to combine these in order to build a better Galactic magnetic field model in regions of high interest. Some of the magnetic field measurement techniques we are pursuing include optopolarimetry of stars at known distances, and studies of the patterns imprinted by MHD waves on cloud gas. 

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Selected Publications: 

• Magnetic Field Tomography in Two Clouds toward Ursa Major Using HI Fibers, Tritsis, Federrath and Pavlidou 2019, ApJ

• Demonstration of Magnetic Field Tomography with Starlight Polarization toward a Diffuse Sightline of the ISM, Panopoulou et al. 2019, ApJ

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Our research on Galactic Magnetism is funded by the FORTH Synergy Grant program through project MagMASim and by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation through project PASIPHAE.