Extragalactic magnetism with SOFIA (Legacy Program) -- II: The bimodal magnetic field in the starburst ring of NGC 1097

Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez, Rainer Beck, Susan E. Clark, Annie Hughes, Alejandro S. Borlaff, Eva Ntormousi, Lucas Grosset, Konstantinos Tassis, John E. Beckman, Kandaswamy Subramanian, Daniel Dale, Tanio Diaz-Santos, Legacy Team

Published 2021-07-19Version 1

We present the properties of the magnetic field (B-field) in the starburst ring of the galaxy NGC 1097. Thermal polarized emission at 89 $\mu$m using HAWC+/SOFIA shows that the polarized flux is spatially located at the contact regions of the outer-bar with the starburst ring. The linear polarization decomposition analysis shows that the $89$ $\mu$m and radio ($3.5$ and $6.2$ cm) polarization traces two different modes, $m$, of the B-field: a constant B-field orientation and dominated by $m=0$ at $89$ $\mu$m, and a spiral B-field dominated by $m=2$ at radio. The $^{12}CO(2-1)$ integrated emission line peaks in the inner $\sim0.69$ kpc, the FIR polarized flux peaks in the central $\sim 1.02$ kpc, and the radio polarized flux peaks in the outer $\sim1.39$ kpc of the starburst ring. Dust temperature is higher, $T_{89\mu m} = 30.7\pm0.4$ K, at the region of the FIR polarized flux than at the radio's region, $T_{3.5cm} = 26.2\pm1.7$ K. We argue that the B-field at 89 $\mu$m is concentrated in the warmest region of a shock front caused by the galactic density wave in the contact regions between the outer-bar with the starburst ring. Radio polarization traces a superposition of the spiral B-field outside and within the starburst ring. According to Faraday rotation measures between $3.5$ and $6.2$ cm, the radial component of the B-field along the contact regions points toward the galaxy's center on both sides. Gas streams follow the B-field, which feeds the black hole with matter from the host galaxy.