Relative Alignment between the Magnetic Field and Molecular Gas Structure in the Vela C Giant Molecular Cloud Using Low- and High-density Tracers

Fissel, Laura M.; Ade, Peter A. R.; Angilè, Francesco E.; Ashton, Peter; Benton, Steven J.; Chen, Che-Yu; Cunningham, Maria; Devlin, Mark J.; Dober, Bradley; Friesen, Rachel; Fukui, Yasuo; Galitzki, Nicholas; Gandilo, Natalie N.; Goodman, Alyssa; Green, Claire-Elise; Jones, Paul; Klein, Jeffrey; King, Patrick; Korotkov, Andrei L.; Li, Zhi-Yun; Lowe, Vicki; Martin, Peter G.; Matthews, Tristan G.; Moncelsi, Lorenzo; Nakamura, Fumitaka; Netterfield, Calvin B.; Newmark, Amanda; Novak, Giles; Pascale, Enzo; Poidevin, Frédérick; Santos, Fabio P.; Savini, Giorgio; Scott, Douglas; Shariff, Jamil A.; Soler, Juan D.; Thomas, Nicholas E.; Tucker, Carole E.; Tucker, Gregory S.; Ward-Thompson, Derek; Zucker, Catherine
Referencia bibliográfica

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 878, Issue 2, article id. 110, 26 pp. (2019).

Fecha de publicación:
6
2019
Número de autores
40
Número de autores del IAC
1
Número de citas
65
Número de citas referidas
60
Descripción
We compare the magnetic field orientation for the young giant molecular cloud Vela C inferred from 500 μm polarization maps made with the BLASTPol balloon-borne polarimeter to the orientation of structures in the integrated line emission maps from Mopra observations. Averaging over the entire cloud we find that elongated structures in integrated line-intensity or zeroth-moment maps, for low-density tracers such as 12CO and 13CO J → 1 – 0, are statistically more likely to align parallel to the magnetic field, while intermediate- or high-density tracers show (on average) a tendency for alignment perpendicular to the magnetic field. This observation agrees with previous studies of the change in relative orientation with column density in Vela C, and supports a model where the magnetic field is strong enough to have influenced the formation of dense gas structures within Vela C. The transition from parallel to no preferred/perpendicular orientation appears to occur between the densities traced by 13CO and by C18O J → 1 – 0. Using RADEX radiative transfer models to estimate the characteristic number density traced by each molecular line, we find that the transition occurs at a molecular hydrogen number density of approximately 103 cm‑3. We also see that the Centre Ridge (the highest column density and most active star-forming region within Vela C) appears to have a transition at a lower number density, suggesting that this may depend on the evolutionary state of the cloud.
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