The Magnetic Field in the Milky Way Filamentary Bone G47
arXiv:2201.11933 · doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ac4d8f
Abstract
Star formation primarily occurs in filaments where magnetic fields are expected to be dynamically important. The largest and densest filaments trace spiral structure within galaxies. Over a dozen of these dense (10\,cm) and long (10\,pc) filaments have been found within the Milky Way, and they are often referred to as "bones." Until now, none of these bones have had their magnetic field resolved and mapped in their entirety. We introduce the SOFIA legacy project FIELDMAPS which has begun mapping 10 of these Milky Way bones using the HAWC+ instrument at 214\,m and 18$\farcs$2 resolution. Here we present a first result from this survey on the 60\,pc long bone G47. Contrary to some studies of dense filaments in the Galactic plane, we find that the magnetic field is often not perpendicular to the spine (i.e., the center-line of the bone). Fields tend to be perpendicular in the densest areas of active star formation and more parallel or random in other areas. The average field is neither parallel or perpendicular to the Galactic plane nor the bone. The magnetic field strengths along the spine typically vary from 20 to 100\,G. Magnetic fields tend to be strong enough to suppress collapse along much of the bone, but for areas that are most active in star formation, the fields are notably less able to resist gravitational collapse.
Accepted to ApJL; typo in author list metadata corrected
References in corpus (14)
- Theory of Star Formation
- The Boston University-Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory Galactic Ring Survey
- MAMBO Mapping of Spitzer c2d Small Clouds and Cores
- Magnetic Fields in High-Mass Infrared Dark Clouds
- Large-scale filaments associated with Milky Way spiral arms
- The Bones of the Milky Way
- Gravity Driven Magnetic Field at ~1000 au Scales in High-mass Star Formation
- Dust polarized emission observations of NGC 6334; BISTRO reveals the details of the complex but organized magnetic field structure of the high-mass star-forming hub-filament network
- Mapping the magnetic field in the Taurus/B211 filamentary cloud with SOFIA HAWC+ and comparing with simulation
- Magnetic Fields in Massive Star-Forming Regions (MagMaR) I. Linear Polarized Imaging of the UCHII Region G5.89-0.39
- Magnetic Properties of Star-Forming Dense Cores
- Magnetic Fields in Massive Star-Forming Regions (MagMaR) II. Tomography Through Dust and Molecular Line Polarization in NGC 6334I(N)
- Gas kinematics and star formation in the filamentary molecular cloud G47.06+0.26
- Magnetic Field Structure in Spheroidal Star-Forming Clouds. II. Estimating Field Structure from Observed Maps