We present a polarimetric investigation of the protoplanetary nebula Frosty Leo performed with the Submillimeter Array. We were able to detect, in the low continuum level (peak at 14.4 mJy beam−1), a marginal polarization at ∼2.6σ. The molecular line investigation based on the CO J=3→2 emission shows a peak emission of 68.1 Jy beam−1 km s−1 and the polarization detection in this CO line is also marginal, with a peak at ∼3.8σ. In both cases, it was therefore not possible to use the electric vector maps (B-field) to accurately trace the magnetic field (B-field) within the PPN. The spatio-kinematic modelling realised with the different velocity channel maps indicates three main structures: a distorted torus accompanied by a bipolar outflow or jet aligned with its axis and a flattened spherical "cap". The comparison of the CO polarization segments with our model suggests that the polarized emission probably arises in the first two components.
@article{arxiv.1901.06072,
title = {A Submillimeter Polarization Analysis of Frosty Leo},
author = {L. Sabin and Q. Zhang and R. Vázquez and W. Steffen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1901.06072},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
8 pages, Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society