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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 July 2016
We show that large–scale motions of the interstellar gas, such as those associated with galactic density waves, easily develop, over a wide range of scales, shocks and discontinuities which are expected to generate turbulence. The latter is supposed to evoke diffusion of magnetic fields and cosmic rays on scales down to a few parsecs. We suggest that these processes may be of major importance in discussions of interconnections between the observed radio emission of the disks of spiral galaxies and the gas density distribution within them. In particular, we predict that the density of cosmic rays and magnetic field energy must be much less contrasted (on scales of ~1 pc and up to the scales of galactic shocks) than the gas density, hence the synchrotron radio emission is not as contrasted as is predicted under the hypothesis of a fully frozen-in magnetic field.