Radio Emission from Galactic Disks

This paper gives a short overview of the observational results on galactic magnetic fields. Interstellar magnetic fields, as deduced from multi-frequency polarization observations, show a well-ordered structure largely following the spiral arms. In some galaxies an axisymmetric spiral pattern dominates (the field being directed inwards), while others exhibit a dominant bisymmetric spiral field or mixed modes, as predicted from non-linear dynamo theory.As long as star formation activity is low, the magnetic fields are rather regular. Strong star formation leads to turbulent cloud motions and supernova explosions, which tangle the field, so that the radio emission is only weakly polarized. As a consequence the highest fractional polarizations and polarized intensities at centimeter wavelengths are found in interarm regions. At decimeter wavelengths, galactic disks become optically thick for polarized emission.In NGC 6946 the regular field is concentrated in narrow magnetic arms located in between the optical spiral arms. The field cannot simply be frozen into the gas and oriented by a density-wave flow. A galactic dynamo may provide a stable spiral pattern of the field, but non-axisymmetric models are still being developed.