Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 474, Issue 4, Pages 5122-5142Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx3096
Keywords
MHD; polarization; turbulence; stars: formation; ISM: magnetic fields; ISM: structure
Categories
Funding
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory
- SAO predoctoral fellowship
- Jefferson Scholars Foundation
- Virginia Space Grant Consortium
- Virginia Institute of Theoretical Astronomy (VITA) at the University of Virginia through the VITA Postdoctoral Prize Fellowship
- NASA [14AB38G]
- NSF [AST1313083, 1716259]
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [1313083, 1716259] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The BLASTPol observations of Vela C have provided the most detailed characterization of the polarization fraction p and dispersion in polarization angles S for a molecular cloud. We compare the observed distributions of p and S with those obtained in synthetic observations of simulations of molecular clouds, assuming homogeneous grain alignment. We find that the orientation of the mean magnetic field relative to the observer has a significant effect on the p and S distributions. These distributions for Vela C are most consistent with synthetic observations where the mean magnetic field is close to the line of sight. Our results point to apparent magnetic disorder in the Vela C molecular cloud, although it can be due to either an inclination effect (i.e. observing close to the mean field direction) or significant field tangling from strong turbulence/low magnetization. The joint correlations of p with column density and of S with column density for the synthetic observations generally agree poorly with the Vela C joint correlations, suggesting that understanding these correlations requires a more sophisticated treatment of grain alignment physics.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available