Magnetic Fields in the Formation of Sun-Like Stars

Abstract

We report high-angular-resolution measurements of polarized dust emission toward the low-mass protostellar system NGC 1333 IRAS 4A. We show that in this system the observed magnetic field morphology is in agreement with the standard theoretical models of the formation of Sun-like stars in magnetized molecular clouds at scales of a few hundred astronomical units; gravity has overcome magnetic support, and the magnetic field traces a clear hourglass shape. The magnetic field is substantially more important than turbulence in the evolution of the system, and the initial misalignment of the magnetic and spin axes may have been important in the formation of the binary system.

8 pages including 2 figures, accepted draft for publication in Science

References in corpus (1)

• Water emission in NGC1333-IRAS4: The physical structure of the envelope

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Theory of Star Formation
• Evolution of Magnetic Fields in High Mass Star Formation: Linking field geometry and collapse for the W51 e2/e8 cores
• Mean-Field Magnetohydrodynamics of Accretion Disks
• Modeling the magnetic field in the protostellar source NGC 1333 IRAS 4A
• Magnetic Fields and Infall Motions in NGC 1333 IRAS 4
• The Submillimeter Array Polarimeter
• Dispersion of Observed Position Angles of Submillimeter Polarization in Molecular Clouds
• Observations of the Goldreich-Kylafis effect in star-forming regions with XPOL at the IRAM 30m telescope