Andrea Reichstein

I am a PhD student here in Cork since October 2009. Prior to that I studied Physics at the Georg-August-Universitaet Gouttingen in Germany, where I wrote my Diploma thesis about the interaction between galaxies and its influence on their starburst and non-thermal activity, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Kollatschny.

As part of my PhD project, I'm currently analyzing 2cm-6cm VLBA polarization data for 24 AGNs that show evidence for "spine+sheath" polarization structures that may be associated with helical B fields. In particular, I am searching for transverse Faraday-rotation gradients associated with the jets of these sources. I will analyze the 18-22cm MOJAVE-I observations for these sources to investigate the relationship between their B-field structures on parsec and decaparsec scales.


Still in the process of mapping all sources at all six frequencies, I have found some promising evidence of interesting transverse structures in several of my sources, which show gradients in the rotation measure (RM) perpendicular to the direction of the jet. The spectral Index maps support the existence of the transverse structures found by analysing the RM, as they indicate optically thin regions surrounding the jet.

Image caption: RM map for 0333+321 from 4.6 to 8.9 GHz with contours of the 4.6 GHz total intensity map. Superimposed are four slices together with the RM values taken from relative outer parts on both ends of the slice.


"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams". (Eleanor Roosevelt)