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The role of magnetic fields in the stability and fragmentation of filamentary molecular clouds: two case studies at OMC-3 and OMC-4

Journal Article · · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4]
  1. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
  2. Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology
  3. Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Koramangala, Bengaluru (India)
  4. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
We present the stability analysis of two regions, OMC-3 and OMC-4, in the massive and long molecular cloud complex of Orion A. We obtained 214 $$\mu$$m HAWC + /SOFIA polarization data, and we make use of archival data for the column density and C18O (1–0) emission line. We find clear depolarization in both observed regions and that the polarization fraction is anticorrelated with the column density and the polarization-angle dispersion function. We find that the filamentary cloud and dense clumps in OMC-3 are magnetically supercritical and strongly subvirial. This region should be in the gravitational collapse phase and is consistent with many young stellar objects (YSOs) forming in the region. Our histogram of relative orientation (HRO) analysis shows that the magnetic field is dynamically sub-dominant in the dense gas structures of OMC-3. We present the first polarization map of OMC-4. We find that the observed region is generally magnetically subcritical except for an elongated dense core, which could be a result of projection effect of a filamentary structure aligned close to the line of sight. The relative large velocity dispersion and the unusual positive shape parameters at high column densities in the HROs analysis suggest that our viewing angle may be close to axes of filamentary substructures in OMC-4. The dominating strong magnetic field in OMC-4 is unfavourable for star formation and is consistent with much fewer YSOs than in OMC-3.
Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
NASA; USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344
OSTI ID:
1890088
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-832665; 1049897
Journal Information:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Journal Name: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 514; ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher:
Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ISM clouds
ISM kinematics and dynamics
ISM magnetic fields
ISM structure
numerical methods
polarimetric techniques