Few normal galaxies have been probed using near-infrared polarimetry , even though it reveals magnetic fields in the cool interstellar medium better than either optical or radio polarimetry .
Deep H band ( 1.6 \mu m ) linear imaging polarimetry toward Taurus serendipitously included the galaxy 2MASX J04412715+2433110 with adequate sensitivity and resolution to map polarization across nearly its full extent .
The observations revealed the galaxy to be a steeply inclined ( \sim 75 ° ) disk type with a diameter , encompassing 90 % of the Petrosian flux , of 4.2 kpc at a distance of 53 Mpc .
Because the sight line passes through the Taurus Molecular Cloud complex , the foreground polarization needed to be measured and removed .
The foreground extinction A _ { V } of 2.00 \pm 0.10 mag and reddening E ( H - K ) of 0.125 \pm 0.009 mag were also assessed and removed , based on analysis of 2MASS , UKIDSS , Spitzer , and WISE photometry using the NICE , NICER , and RJCE methods .
Corrected for the polarized foreground , the galaxy polarization values range from zero to 3 % .
The polarizations are dominated by a disk-parallel magnetic field geometry , especially to the northeast , while either a vertical field or single scattering of bulge light produces disk-normal polarizations to the southwest .
The multi-kpc coherence of the magnetic field revealed by the infrared polarimetry is in close agreement with short wavelength radio synchrotron observations of edge-on galaxies , indicating that both cool and warm interstellar media of disk galaxies may be threaded by common magnetic fields .