Magnetic Fields in the Bones of the Milky Way

We show three-dimensional numerical simulations in which stars form sequentially in a filamentary molecular cloud. The star formation is triggered by expansion of an H II region. The H II region is distant from the filamentary cloud at the initial stage. As it expands, it interacts with the filamentary cloud. The cloud is pinched and separated into two parts. Subsequently, the gravitational instability is induced to form two cores of the first generation along the filament axis in a typical model. The separation of the two cores is several times larger than the filament diameter. It is comparable to the wavelength of the fastest growing fragmentation mode. The first-generation cores become isolated, and filamentary clouds shorten to widen the separation. New cores of second generation form at the edges of the shortened filamentary clouds. This core formation is recursive, and our model shows sequential star formation triggered by an expanding H II region. The age difference is several times that of the dynamical timescale between the first- and second-generation cores. This sequential star formation is similar to that observed in the filamentary cloud associated with the H II region NGC 2024. Our first-generation cores correspond to FIR 4 and FIR 5, while the second-generation cores correspond to FIR 3 and FIR 6.

Recent dust continuum surveys have shown that filamentary structures are ubiquitous along the Galactic plane. While the study of their global properties has gained momentum recently, we are still far from fully understanding their origin and stability. Theories invoking magnetic field have been formulated to help explain the stability of filaments; however, observations are needed to test their predictions. In this paper, we investigate the structure and radial equilibrium of five filamentary molecular clouds with the aim of determining the role that magnetic field may play. To do this, we use continuum and molecular line observations to obtain their physical properties (e.g. mass, temperature and pressure). We find that the filaments have lower lineal masses compared to their lineal virial masses. Their virial parameters and shape of their dust continuum emission suggests that these filaments may be confined by a toroidal dominated magnetic field.

We have constructed two types of analytical models for an isothermal filamentary cloud supported mainly by magnetic tension. The first one describes an isolated cloud while the second considers filamentary clouds spaced periodically. Both the models assume that the filamentary clouds are highly flattened. The former is proved to be the asymptotic limit of the latter in which each filamentary cloud is much thinner than the distance to the neighboring filaments. We show that these models reproduce main features of the 2D equilibrium model of Tomisaka (2014) for filamentary cloud threaded by perpendicular magnetic field. It is also shown that the critical mass to flux ratio is $ M /\Phi = (2 \pi \sqrt{G}) ^{-1} $, where $ M $, $ \Phi $ and $ G $ denote the cloud mass, the total magnetic flux of the cloud, and the gravitational constant, respectively. This upper bound coincides with that for an axisymmetric cloud supported by poloidal magnetic fields. We applied the variational principle for studying the Jeans instability of the first model. Our model cloud is unstable against fragmentation as well as the filamentary clouds threaded by longitudinal magnetic field. The fastest growing mode has a wavelength several times longer than the cloud diameter. The second model describes quasi-static evolution of filamentary molecular cloud by ambipolar diffusion.

New visible polarization data combined with existing IR and FIR polarization data are used to study how the magnetic field threading the filamentary molecular cloud GF 9 connects to larger structures in its general environment. We find that when both visible and NIR polarization data are plotted as a function of extinction, there is no evidence for a plateau or a saturation effect in the polarization at Av ~ 1.3 as seen in dark clouds in Taurus. This lack of saturation effect suggests that even in the denser parts of GF 9 we are still probing the magnetic field. The visible polarization is smooth and has a well-defined orientation. The IR data are also well defined but with a different direction, and the FIR data in the core region are well defined and with yet another direction, but are randomly distributed in the filament region. On the scale of a few times the mean radial dimension of the molecular cloud, it is as if the magnetic field were `blind' to the spatial distribution of the filaments while on smaller scales within the cloud, in the core region near the IRAS point source PSC 20503+6006, polarimetry shows a rotation of the magnetic field lines in these denser phases. Hence, in spite of the fact that the spatial resolution is not the same in the visible/NIR and in the FIR data, all the data put together indicate that the field direction changes with the spatial scale. Finally, the Chandrasekhar and Fermi method is used to evaluate the magnetic field strength, indicating that the core region is approximately magnetically critical. A global interpretation of the results is that in the core region an original poloidal field could have been twisted by a rotating elongated (core+envelope) structure. There is no evidence for turbulence and ambipolar diffusion does not seem to be effective at the present time.

Gamma-ray burst (GRB) 190114C was a bright burst that occurred in the local Universe (z = 0.425). It was the first GRB ever detected at teraelectronvolt (TeV) energies, and this was thanks to MAGIC. We characterize the ambient medium properties of the host galaxy through the study of the absorbing X-ray column density. Using a combination of Swift, XMM-Newton, and NuSTAR observations, we find that the GRB X-ray spectrum is characterized by a high column density that is well in excess of the expected Milky Way value and decreases, by a factor of ∼2, around ∼105 s. Such a variability is not common in GRBs. The most straightforward interpretation of the variability in terms of the photoionization of the ambient medium is not able to account for the decrease at such late times, when the source flux is less intense. Instead, we interpret the decrease as due to a clumped absorber, denser along the line of sight and surrounded by lower-density gas. After the detection at TeV energies of GRB 190114C, two other GRBs were promptly detected. These two also have high intrinsic column density values, and there are hints for a decrease in their column densities as well. We speculate that a high local column density might be a common ingredient of TeV-detected GRBs.

Radio and optical observations have been made in order to examine star formation in the dark cloud L1333 [α(1950) = 2h210, δ(1950) = 75°15']. A study of the cumulative distribution of field star distance moduli yields a distance value close to 180 pc for the L1333 molecular cloud. 13CO observations revealed two filamentary molecular clouds with distinct velocities of VLSR ∼ -2 and 3 km s-1, respectively. Thirteen C18O cores, characterized by an average molecular mass (MLTE) of ∼9 M⊙ and a mean density of ∼1.4 × 104 cm-3, are embedded in the two 13CO clouds. We have detected 18 Hα emission-line stars projected within or near the 13CO clouds on objective-prism plates. They can be regarded as candidate pre–main-sequence stars formed in the clouds. Five IRAS sources with flux density distributions characteristic of young stellar objects (YSOs) are found in the area of the cloud. Three of the IRAS sources coincide with Hα emission-line stars, the others with faint stars without detected Hα emission. One of the latter sources is associated with a C18O core and exhibits a protostar-type infrared spectrum. The IRAS source exhibits a winglike feature of ∼1.6 km s-1 (full width at zero intensity) in C18O, which may indicate that the YSO has an outflow. We note that the C18O core has the smallest ratio of virial mass (Mvir) to MLTE among the C18O cores in L1333, suggesting that star formation occurs preferentially in a core whose internal kinetic energy is low compared with the self-gravitational energy. A possible scenario for the past star formation activity is discussed.

Context. Magnetic fields can play a crucial role in high-mass star formation. Nonetheless, the significance of magnetic fields at various scales and their relationship with gas structures have been largely overlooked. Aims. Our goal is to examine the relationship between the magnetic field and molecular gas structures within the Orion A giant molecular cloud at different scales and density regimes. Methods. We assessed the gas intensity structures and column densities in Orion A using 12CO, 13CO, and C18O from Nobeyama observations. By comparing Nobeyama observations with Planck polarization observations on large scales (~0.6 pc) and JCMT polarization observations on small scales (~0.04 pc), we investigate how the role of magnetic fields changes with scale and density. Results. We find a similar trend from parallel to perpendicular alignment with increasing column density in Orion A at both large and small spatial scales. In addition, when changing from low-density to high-density tracers, the relative orientation preference changes from random to perpendicular. The self-similar results at different scales indicate that magnetic fields are dynamically important in both cloud formation and filament formation. However, magnetic field properties at small scales are relative complicated, and the interplay between magnetic field and star-forming activity needs to be discussed case by case.

A first high-resolution survey of molecular cloud cores in the Orion A giant molecular cloud is reported. We identified 125 molecular cloud cores from an analysis of the spatial and velocity distribution of the CS (1-0) emission. The cores are generally elongated along the filamentary molecular cloud, and the axial ratio is about 0.5. The mass spectrum index of the cores is -1.6 for M≥50 M ○ .. The physical properties of the cores identified in Orion are compared with those of cores in dark clouds reported in the literature. The average radius of the cores in the Orion A cloud, 0.16 pc, is comparable to that of the cores in dark clouds

We show data from the SCUBA2 camera on JCMT, of molecular clouds. We focus on starless cores within the clouds. We present data of the Taurus region and show how the environment is affecting some cores' appearance in this region. We compare the SCUBA2 data with Herschel data and discuss the sensitivity of SCUBA2 to surface brightness in the sub-millimetre. We show how this leads to its ability to pick out the densest cores at a given temperature. Hence SCUBA2 preferentially picks out gravitationally bound pre-stellar cores. We discuss the effects of the magnetic field, and how this lends support to a model for the formation and evolution of cores in filamentary molecular clouds.

Star formation on galactic scales is known to be a slow process, but whether it is slow on smaller scales is uncertain. We cross-correlate 5469 giant molecular clouds (GMCs) from a new all-sky catalog with 256 star-forming complexes (SFCs) to build a sample of 191 SFC-GMC complexes—collections of multiple clouds each matched to 191 SFCs. The total mass in stars harbored by these clouds is inferred from WMAP free–free fluxes. We measure the GMC mass, the virial parameter, the star formation efficiency ϵ and the star formation rate per freefall time ϵ ff. Both ϵ and ϵ ff range over 3–4 orders of magnitude. We find that 68.3% of the clouds fall within and about the median. Compared to these observed scatters, a simple model with a time-independent ϵ ff that depends on the host GMC properties predicts . Allowing for a time-variable ϵ ff, we can recover the large dispersion in the rate of star formation. This strongly suggests that star formation in the Milky Way is a dynamic process on GMC scales. We also show that the surface star formation rate profile of the Milky Way correlates well with the molecular gas surface density profile.

We present a catalogue of 453 molecular clouds in M31 extracted from CO J = 1-0 data observed with CARMA using a dendrogram. Our clouds have the mean values of 2.8 km s$^{-1}$, 22.1 pc, and 10$^{5.2}$ M$_\odot$ for the velocity dispersion, radius, and mass, respectively. The velocity dispersion shows a weak anticorrelation with the galactocentric radius. The clouds in M31 show mean and median values of 2.0 and 1.4, respectively, for their virial parameters, indicating that most of them are gravitationally bound. Our dendrogram analysis identifies 35 sources with multiple velocity components, which we classify as molecular cloud complexes. We study the size–velocity dispersion and size–mass relationships for the clouds in M31, finding the slopes of 0.43$\pm$0.05 and 1.36$\pm$0.06 for the former and the latter, respectively. Our size–velocity dispersion relationship agrees with those of Milky Way (MW) and M31 clouds. The slope of our size–mass relationship is shallower than those in clouds and cloud complexes of the MW. We find offsets between the isosurfaces of the clouds and star formation rate peaks in M31, supporting the scenario where the evolutionary state of individual sources plays a role in the Kennicutt–Schmidt (KS) law at parsec scales. We find a slope of 0.66$\pm$0.07 for the KS law, which is slightly lower than the values of $\sim$0.8 for MW clouds.

Context.Star formation drives the evolution of galaxies and the cycling of matter between different phases of the interstellar medium and stars. The support of interstellar clouds against gravitational collapse by magnetic fields has been proposed as a possible explanation for the low observed star formation efficiency in galaxies and the Milky Way. ThePlancksatellite provided the first all-sky map of the magnetic field geometry in the diffuse interstellar medium on angular scales of 5–15′. However, higher spatial resolution observations are required to understand the transition from diffuse, subcritical gas to dense, gravitationally unstable filaments.Aims.NGC 2024, also known as the Flame nebula, is located in the nearby Orion B molecular cloud. It contains a young, expanding HIIregion and a dense supercritical filament. This filament harbors embedded protostellar objects and is likely not supported by the magnetic field against gravitational collapse. Therefore, NGC 2024 provides an excellent opportunity to study the role of magnetic fields in the formation, evolution, and collapse of dense filaments, the dynamics of young HIIregions, and the effects of mechanical and radiative feedback from massive stars on the surrounding molecular gas.Methods.We combined new 154 and 216 μm dust polarization measurements carried out using the HAWC+ instrument aboard SOFIA with molecular line observations of12CN(1−0) and HCO+(1−0) from the IRAM 30-m telescope to determine the magnetic field geometry, and to estimate the plane of the sky magnetic field strength across the NGC 2024 HIIregion and the surrounding molecular cloud.Results.The HAWC+ observations show an ordered magnetic field geometry in NGC 2024 that follows the morphology of the expanding HIIregion and the direction of the main dense filament. The derived plane of the sky magnetic field strength is moderate, ranging from 30 to 80 μG. The strongest magnetic field is found at the eastern edge of the HIIregion, characterized by the highest gas densities and molecular line widths. In contrast, the weakest field is found toward the main, dense filament in NGC 2024.Conclusions.We find that the magnetic field has a non-negligible influence on the gas stability at the edges of the expanding HIIshell (gas impacted by stellar feedback) and the filament (site of current star formation).

We study the linear evolution of small perturbations in self-gravitating fluid systems in two spatial dimensions; we consider both cylindrical and cartesian (i.e., slab) geometries. The treatment is general, but the application is to molecular clouds. We consider a class of equations of state which heuristically take into account the presence of turbulence; in particular, we consider equations of state which are {\it softer} than isothermal. We take the unperturbed cloud configuration to be in hydrostatic equilibrium. We find a class of wave solutions which propagate along a pressure supported cylinder (or slab) and have finite (trapped) spatial distributions in the direction perpendicular to the direction of propagation. Our results indicate that the dispersion relations for these two dimensional waves have similar forms for the two geometries considered here. Both cases possess a regime of instability and a fastest growing mode. We also find the (perpendicular) form of the perturbations for a wide range of wavelengths. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for star formation and molecular clouds. The mass scales set by instabilities in both molecular cloud filaments and sheets are generally much larger than the masses of stars. However, these instabilities can determine the length scales for the initial conditions for protostellar collapse.

The formation and evolution processes of magnetized filamentary molecular clouds are investigated in detail by linear stability analyses and non-linear numerical calculations. A one-dimensionally compressed self-gravitating sheet-like cloud breaks up into filamentary clouds. The directions of the longitudinal axes of the resulting filaments are perpendicular to the directions of magnetic field lines unless the column density of the sheet is very small. These magnetized filaments tend to collapse radially without characteristic density, length, and mass scale for the further fragmentation during the isothermal phase. The characteristic minimum mass for the final fragmentation is obtained by the investigation of thermal processes. The essential points of the above processes are analytically explained in terms of the basic physics. A theory for the expected mass function of dense molecular cloud cores is obtained. The expected mean surface density of companions of dense cores is also discussed.

We present the first high angular resolution study of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 300, based on observations from the Submillimeter Array (SMA). We target eleven 500 pc sized regions of active star formation within the galaxy in the 12CO(J = 2-1) line at 40 pc spatial and 1 km s−1 spectral resolution and identify 45 individual GMCs. We characterize the physical properties of these GMCs, and find that they are similar to GMCs in the disks of the Milky Way and other nearby spiral galaxies. For example, the GMC mass spectrum in our sample has a slope of 1.80 ± 0.07. Twelve clouds are spatially resolved by our observations, of which ten have virial mass estimates that agree to within a factor of two with mass estimates derived directly from 12CO integrated intensity, suggesting that the majority of these GMCs are bound. The resolved clouds show consistency with Larson’s fundamental relations between size, linewidth, and mass observed in the Milky Way. We find that the linewidth scales with the size as ΔV ∝ R 0.52±0.20, and the median surface density in the subsample is 54 M ⊙ pc−2. We detect 13CO in four GMCs and find a mean 12CO/13CO flux ratio of 6.2. Our interferometric observations recover between 30% and 100% of the integrated intensity from the APEX single dish 12CO observations of Faesi et al., suggesting the presence of low-mass GMCs and/or diffuse gas below our sensitivity limit. The fraction of APEX emission recovered increases with the SMA total intensity, as well as with the star formation rate.