How important is the magnetic (B-) field when compared to gravity and turbulence in the star-formation process? Does its importance depend on scale and location? We summarize submm dust polarization observations towards the large filamentary infrared dark cloud G34 and towards a dense core in the high-mass star-forming region W51. We detect B-field orientations that are either perpendicular or parallel to the G34 filament axis. These B-field orientations further correlate with local velocity gradients. Towards three cores in G34 we find a varying importance between B-field, gravity, and turbulence that seems to dictate varying types of fragmentation. At highest resolution towards the gravity-dominated collapsing core W51 e2 we resolve new B-field features, such as converging B-field lines and possibly magnetic channels.
@article{arxiv.1801.06995,
title = {Magnetic Fields from Filaments to Cores},
author = {Patrick M. Koch and Ya-Wen Tang and Nicholas L. Chapman and Ana Duarte-Cabral and Paul T. P. Ho and Giles Novak and Nicolas Peretto and Yu-Nung Su and Shigehisa Takakuwa and Hsi-Wei Yen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1801.06995},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
Talk given at the Conference "Francesco's Legacy: Star Formation in Space and Time", in memory of Francesco Palla (1954-2016), held in Florence, Italy, June 5-9, 2017; To be published in "Memorie della Societ\`a Astronomica Italiana"