The Super-Alfvénic Model of Molecular Clouds: Predictions for Mass-to-Flux and Turbulent-to-Magnetic Energy Ratios

Abstract

Recent measurements of the Zeeman effect in dark-cloud cores provide important tests for theories of cloud dynamics and prestellar core formation. In this Letter we report results of simulated Zeeman measurements, based on radiative transfer calculations through a snapshot of a simulation of supersonic and super-Alfvénic turbulence. We have previously shown that the same simulation yields a relative mass-to-flux ratio (core versus envelope) in agreement with the observations (and in contradiction with the ambipolar-drift model of core formation). Here we show that the mass-to-flux and turbulent-to-magnetic-energy ratios in the simulated cores agree with observed values as well. The mean magnetic field strength in the simulation is very low, \bar{B}=0.34 \muG, presumably lower than the mean field in molecular clouds. Nonetheless, high magnetic field values are found in dense cores, in agreement with the observations (the rms field, amplified by the turbulence, is B_{rms}=3.05 \muG). We conclude that a strong large-scale mean magnetic field is not required by Zeeman effect measurements to date, although it is not ruled out by this work.

7/24/09: 6 pages, 7 figures, accepted to ApJL. Minor additions to the previous version. 7/3/09: 5 pages, 7 figures, submitted to ApJL

References in corpus (2)

• Magnetic Fields in Dark Cloud Cores: Arecibo OH Zeeman Observations
• The Perils of Clumpfind: The Mass Spectrum of Sub-structures in Molecular Clouds

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