Are Spine--Sheath Polarization Structures in the Jets of Active Galactic Nuclei Associated with Helical Magnetic Fields?

Understand

One possible origin for polarization structures across jets of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) with a central "spine" of orthogonal magnetic field and a "sheath" of longitudinal magnetic field along one or both edges of the jet is the presence of a helical jet magnetic field.

• Simultaneous Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) polarization observations of AGN displaying partial or full spine--sheath polarization structures were obtained at 4.6, 5.0, 7.9, 8.9, 12.9 and 15.4 GHz, in order to search for additional evidence for helical jet magnetic fields, such as transverse Faraday rotation gradients (due to the systematic change in the line-of-sight magnetic-field component across the jet).
• Results for eight sources displaying monotonic transverse Faraday rotation gradients with significances $\geq 3\sigma$ are presented here.
• Reversals in the directions of the transverse RM gradients with distance from the core or with time are detected in three of these AGNs.