Anchoring Magnetic Fields in Turbulent Molecular Clouds
| Title: | Anchoring Magnetic Fields in Turbulent Molecular Clouds |
| Author: |
Li, Hua-bai; Dowell, C. Darren; Goodman, Alyssa A.; Hildebrand, Roger; Novak, Giles
Note: Order does not necessarily reflect citation order of authors. |
| Citation: | Li, Hua-bai, C. Darren Dowell, Alyssa A. Goodman, Roger Hildebrand, and Giles Novak. 2009. Anchoring magnetic fields in turbulent molecular clouds. Astrophysical Journal 704(2): 891-897. |
| Full Text & Related Files: |
Goodman_AnchoringMagneticField.pdf (987.9Kb; PDF) 
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| Abstract: | One of the key problems in star formation research is to determine the role of magnetic fields. Starting from the atomic intercloud medium which has density \(n_H \sim \ 1 \ cm^{–3}\), gas must accumulate from a volume several hundred pc across in order to form a typical molecular cloud. Star formation usually occurs in cloud cores, which have linear sizes below 1 pc and densities \(n_{H2} > 10^5 \ cm^{–3}\). With current technologies, it is hard to probe magnetic fields at scales lying between the accumulation length and the size of cloud cores, a range corresponds to many levels of turbulent eddy cascade, and many orders of magnitude of density amplification. For field directions detected from the two extremes, however, we show here that a significant correlation is found. Comparing this result with molecular cloud simulations, only the sub-Alfvénic cases result in field orientations consistent with our observations. |
| Published Version: | doi:10.1088/0004-637X/704/2/891 |
| Terms of Use: | This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Open Access Policy Articles, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#OAP |
| Citable link to this page: | http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:4310839 |
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