Abstract

We have observed a small sample of edge-on galaxies in total and linearly polarized radio continuum emission at 6.2 cm, using the Effelsberg 100 m telescope. The resulting maps were combined with available VLA data in order to obtain high-sensitivity radio images which have a sufficient angular resolution and do not suffer from the so-called missing-spacing problem.

From an analysis of these images (together with 2.8 cm and 20 cm data) we get the following results: 1. The radio emission perpendicular to the plane can be described by a two-component exponential distribution with scale-heights of ~ 300 pc and ~ 1.8 kpc, independently of the star forming activity and interaction state. 2. In the disk of the non-interacting galaxies of our sample the thermal fraction of the emission seem to be higher than usually deduced from observations of face-on galaxies. 3. The fractional polarization p increases with increasing galactic height, reaches a maximum at h ~ 1 - 3 kpc, and decreases again. In general p is lower in actively star forming galaxies.

Back to Refereed publications