Boulanger F

Ensslin T

Fletcher A

Girichides P

Hackstein S

Haverkorn M

Hoerandel JR

Jaffe TR

Jasche J

Kachelriess M

Kotera K

Pfrommer C

Rachen JP

Rodrigues LFS

Ruiz-Granados B

Seta A

Shukurov A

Sigl G

Steininger T

Vacca V

van der Velden E

van Vliet A

Wang J

In this white paper we introduce the IMAGINE Consortium and its scientificbackground, goals and structure. The purpose of the consortium is to coordinate and fa-cilitate the efforts of a diverse group of researchers in the broad areas of the interstellarmedium, Galactic magnetic fields and cosmic rays, and our overarching goal is to developmore comprehensive insights into the structures and roles of interstellar magnetic fields andtheir interactions with cosmic rays within the context of Galactic astrophysics. The ongoingrapid development of observational and numerical facilities and techniques has resulted ina widely felt need to advance this subject to a qualitatively higher level of self-consistency,depth and rigour. This can only be achieved by the coordinated efforts of experts in diverseareas of astrophysics involved in observational, theoretical and numerical work. We presentour view of the present status of this research area, identify its key unsolved problems andsuggest a strategy that will underpin our work. The backbone of the consortium is theInterstellar MAGnetic field INference Engine, a publicly available Bayesian platform thatemploys robust statistical methods to explore the multi-dimensional likelihood space usingany number of modular inputs. This tool will be used by the IMAGINE Consortium todevelop an interpretation and modelling framework that provides the method, power andflexibility to interfuse information from a variety of observational, theoretical and numericallines of evidence into a self-consistent and comprehensive picture of the thermal and non-thermal interstellar media. An important innovation is that a consistent understanding ofthe phenomena that are directly or indirectly influenced by the Galactic magnetic field, suchas the deflection of ultra-high energy cosmic rays or extragalactic backgrounds, is made anintegral part of the modelling. The IMAGINE Consortium, which is informal by nature andopen to new participants, hereby presents a methodological framework for the modelling andunderstanding of Galactic magnetic fields that is available to all communities whose researchrelies on a state of the art solution to this problem

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IMAGINE: A comprehensive view of the interstellar medium, Galactic magnetic fields and cosmic rays

IMAGINE: A comprehensive view of the interstellar medium, Galactic magnetic fields and cosmic rays

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