Shaping the Magellanic Stream with the Magellanic Corona: A Faraday Rotation search
This project is intended to search for the magnetic field signature of the Magellanic halo.
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The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC/SMC) are the closest massive satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. They have a very dramatic Stream of gaseous material that both trails and leads the Clouds, providing evidence of the interaction of the galaxies with the Milky Way. This Magellanic Stream stretches over 200 degrees around the sky. It has been suggested that the Large Magellanic Cloud is surrounded by a warm-hot gaseous halo that would have shaped the Stream (Krishnarao et al 2022). Adding to the effects of the halo on the Stream - there should be a weak magnetic field threaded throughout, which if present will be enormously influential on the shape of the Stream. This project is intended to search for the magnetic field signature of the Magellanic halo. Measuring the strength and distribution of the magnetic field will give essential constraints to how the Magellanic Stream formed and has survived to this day.