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Role of Magnetic Fields in Star Formation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2010

Richard M. Crutcher*
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA email: crutcher@illinois.edu
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Abstract

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I describe two recent projects to test star formation theory using Zeeman observations. First, using Bayesian analysis, the probability distribution function of the magnitude of the total magnetic field strength Bt and its dependence on volume density n(H) were inferred from Zeeman observations of the line-of-sight strengths Bz. The result was that from one molecular cloud to another Bt ranges uniformly between values close to zero and a maximum B0, and that B0 scales as n2/3. Second, observations of the ratio of the mass/flux (M/Φ) between the core and envelope regions of four dark clouds yielded values < 1. All of these results disagree with predictions of the strong magnetic field, ambipolar diffusion driven theory of star formation.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2010

References

Crutcher, R. M., Wandelt, B., Heiles, C., Falgarone, E., & Troland, T. H. 2010, ApJ submittedGoogle Scholar
Crutcher, R. M., Hakobian, N., & Troland, T. H. 2009, ApJ 692, 844CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heiles, C. & Crutcher, R. M. 2005, Cosmic Magnetic Fields, Lecture Notes in Physics (Heidelberg: Springer), vol. 218, p. 23Google Scholar