B. C. Allanach, N. Bich Ngoc, P. N. Diep, H. Parsons, K. Pattle, T. Hoang, D. Ward-Thompson, L. N. Tram, C. L. H. Hull, M. Tahani, R. S. Furuya, P. Bastien, K. Qiu, T. Hasegawa, W. Kwon, Y. Doi, S.-P. Lai, S. Coudé, D. L. Berry, T.-C. Ching, J. Hwang, A. Soam, J.-W. Wang, D. Arzoumanian, T. L. Bourke, D.-Y. Byun, H.-R. Vivien Chen, Z. Chen, W. Ping Chen, M. Chen, J. Cho, Y. Choi, M. Choi, A. Chrysostomou, E. J. Chung, S. Dai, J. Di Francesco, Y. Duan, H.-Y. Duan, D. J. Eden, C. Eswaraiah, L. Fanciullo, J. Fiege, L. M. Fissel, E. Franzmann, P. Friberg, R. Friesen, G. Fuller, T. M. Gledhill, S. F. Graves, J. Greaves, M. Griffin, Q. Gu, I. Han, J. Hatchell, S. S. Hayashi, M. Houde, T. Inoue, S.-I. Inutsuka, K. Iwasaki, I.-G. Jeong, D. Johnstone, J.-h. Kang, S.-j. Kang, M. Kang, A. Kataoka, K. S. Kawabata, F. Kemper, K.-T. Kim, J. Kim, T. S. Pyo, L. Qian, R. Rao, M. G. Rawlings, J. Rawlings, B. Retter, J. Richer, A. Rigby, S. Sadavoy, H. Saito, G. Savini, A. M. M. Scaife, M. Seta, G. Kim, S. Kim, K. H. Kim, M.-R. Kim, F. Kirchschlager, J. Kirk, M. I. N. Kobayashi, P. M. Koch, Vera Konyves, T. Kusune, J. Kwon, K. Lacaille, C.-Y. Law, Sang-Sung Lee, Y.-H. Lee, C.-F. Lee, J.-E. Lee, H. Lee, Chang Won Lee, D. Li, H.-b. Li, D. Li, H.-L. Liu, J. Liu, T. Liu, S.-Y. Liu, X. Lu, A. -R. Lyo, S. Mairs, M. Matsumura, B. C. Matthews, G. H. Moriarty-Schieven, T. Nagata, F. Nakamura, H. Nakanishi, N. Ohashi, T. Onaka, G. Park, N. Peretto, Y. Shimajiri, H. Shinnaga, M. Tamura, Y.-W. Tang, X. Tang, K. Tomisaka, Y. Tsukamoto, S. Viti, H. Wang, A. P. Whitworth, J. Xie, H.-W. Yen, H. Yoo, J. Yuan, H.-S. Yun, T. Zenko, Y. Zhang, C.-P. Zhang, G. Zhang, J. Zhou, L. Zhu, I. De Looze, Ph. André, C. D. Dowell, S. Eyres, S. Falle, J.-F. Robitaille, S. van Loo
Abstract
We report the first high spatial resolution measurement of magnetic fields surrounding LkHα 101, part of the Auriga–California molecular cloud. The observations were taken with the POL-2 polarimeter on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope within the framework of the B-fields In Star-forming Region Observations (BISTRO) survey. Observed polarization of thermal dust emission at 850 μm is found to be mostly associated with the redshifted gas component of the cloud. The magnetic field displays a relatively complex morphology. Two variants of the Davis–Chandrasekhar–Fermi method, unsharp masking and structure function, are used to calculate the strength of magnetic fields in the plane of the sky, yielding a similar result of BPOS ~ 115 μG. The mass-to-magnetic-flux ratio in critical value units, λ ~ 0.3, is the smallest among the values obtained for other regions surveyed by POL-2. This implies that the LkHα 101 region is subcritical, and the magnetic field is strong enough to prevent gravitational collapse. The inferred δB/B0 ~ 0.3 implies that the large-scale component of the magnetic field dominates the turbulent one. The variation of the polarization fraction with total emission intensity can be fitted by a power law with an index of α = 0.82 ± 0.03, which lies in the range previously reported for molecular clouds. We find that the polarization fraction decreases rapidly with proximity to the only early B star (LkHα 101) in the region. Magnetic field tangling and the joint effect of grain alignment and rotational disruption by radiative torques can potentially explain such a decreasing trend.
Keywords
Interstellar magnetic fields; Molecular clouds; Star formation; 845; 1072; 1569; Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies; Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
The Astronomical Journal
Volume 908, Number 10, Page 20
2021 February
