The Galactic Center Magnetosphere

by

Ted LaRosa
13 July 2001

 
 
  The centers of many galaxies are the sites of some of the most bizarre and extreme activity in the universe. The center of our own galaxy is no exception and displays a wide variety of phenomena: bursts of massive star formation, a supermassive black hole, matter-antimater annihilation, turbulent and explosive gas motion. In addition the galactic center also appears to be the home of unusual magnetic activity as revealed by high resolution images of filamentary radio sources that remain coherent over hundreds of parsecs. Such structures have not been found anywhere else and their origin has been the subject of considerable speculation. In this talk I will review both the observational and theoretical status of these sources. Although they are clearly magnetic structures it is not known whether they are independent local flux tubes or are part of a large-scale pervasive magnetic field the fills the entire region.

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