The large - scale Galactic magnetic field structure and pulsar rotation measures

Pulsars provide unique probes for the large-scale interstellar magnetic field in the Galactic disk. The Parkes multibeam pulsar survey has discovered many distant pulsars which enables us for the first time to explore the magnetic field in most of the nearby half of the Galactic disk. The fields are found to be coherent in direction over a linear scale of ∼ 10 kpc between the Carina-Sagittarius and Crux-Scutum arms from l ∼ 45◦ to l ∼ 305◦. The coherent spiral structures and field direction reversals, including the newly determined counterclockwise field near the Norma arm, are consistent with bi-symmetric spiral model for the disk field. However, the antisymmetric rotation measure sky from the Galactic halo and the dipole field in the Galactic center suggest that the A0 dynamo is operating there.