English

Evidence for the gravity-driven and magnetically-regularized gas flows feeding the massive protostellar cluster in Cepheus A

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2026-05-13 v2

Abstract

The hierarchical interplay among gravity, magnetic fields, and turbulence in forming massive protostellar clusters remains elusive. We present high-resolution (\sim14 arcsec \simeq 0.05 pc) 850 μ\mum dust polarization and C18^{18}O line observations of Cepheus A using JCMT SCUBA-2/POL-2 and HARP. Our analysis reveals aligned gravitational (G), magnetic (B), and velocity fields (K), with an energy hierarchy of EGE_{\mathrm{G}} > EBE_{\mathrm{B}} > EKE_{\mathrm{K}}. Gravity, as the primary driver, induces gas flows and drags in B-field lines. Magnetic tension, as a secondary force, regulates turbulence, enabling ordered flows with an accretion rate of \sim 2.1 ±\pm 0.4 ×\times 104^{-4} M_\odot yr1^{-1}. This challenges the conventional view of B-fields resisting collapse in the clump/hub scale, instead showing cooperation with gravity. The \sim0.6 pc clump-scale B-field (with mean PA \sim 45{\deg}) aligns coherently with fields at cloud (\sim5 pc), core (\sim0.05 pc), and disk (\sim2000 AU) scales, offering new insights into the role of magnetic fields in multiscale star formation dynamics.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2501.10280,
  title  = {Evidence for the gravity-driven and magnetically-regularized gas flows feeding the massive protostellar cluster in Cepheus A},
  author = {Panigrahy Sandhyarani and Chakali Eswaraiah and Di Li and Enrique Vázquez-Semadeni and Gilberto C. Gómez and Travis J. Thieme and Manash R. Samal and Jia-Wei Wang and Shih-Ping Lai and Wen-Ping Chen and D. K. Ojha},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.10280},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

42 pages, 6 figures in the main text and 5 figures in the supplementary material, Published in Science Advances