Bibcode
Fissel, Laura M.; Ade, Peter A. R.; Angilè, Francesco E.; Ashton, Peter; Benton, Steven J.; Chen, Che-Yu; Cunningham, Maria; Devlin, Mark J.; Dober, Bradley; Friesen, Rachel; Fukui, Yasuo; Galitzki, Nicholas; Gandilo, Natalie N.; Goodman, Alyssa; Green, Claire-Elise; Jones, Paul; Klein, Jeffrey; King, Patrick; Korotkov, Andrei L.; Li, Zhi-Yun; Lowe, Vicki; Martin, Peter G.; Matthews, Tristan G.; Moncelsi, Lorenzo; Nakamura, Fumitaka; Netterfield, Calvin B.; Newmark, Amanda; Novak, Giles; Pascale, Enzo; Poidevin, Frédérick; Santos, Fabio P.; Savini, Giorgio; Scott, Douglas; Shariff, Jamil A.; Soler, Juan D.; Thomas, Nicholas E.; Tucker, Carole E.; Tucker, Gregory S.; Ward-Thompson, Derek; Zucker, Catherine
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 878, Issue 2, article id. 110, 26 pp. (2019).
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2019
Journal
Citations
65
Refereed citations
60
Description
We compare the magnetic field orientation for the young giant molecular
cloud Vela C inferred from 500 μm polarization maps made with the
BLASTPol balloon-borne polarimeter to the orientation of structures in
the integrated line emission maps from Mopra observations. Averaging
over the entire cloud we find that elongated structures in integrated
line-intensity or zeroth-moment maps, for low-density tracers such as
12CO and 13CO J → 1 – 0, are
statistically more likely to align parallel to the magnetic field, while
intermediate- or high-density tracers show (on average) a tendency for
alignment perpendicular to the magnetic field. This observation agrees
with previous studies of the change in relative orientation with column
density in Vela C, and supports a model where the magnetic field is
strong enough to have influenced the formation of dense gas structures
within Vela C. The transition from parallel to no
preferred/perpendicular orientation appears to occur between the
densities traced by 13CO and by C18O J → 1
– 0. Using RADEX radiative transfer models to estimate the
characteristic number density traced by each molecular line, we find
that the transition occurs at a molecular hydrogen number density of
approximately 103 cm‑3. We also see that the
Centre Ridge (the highest column density and most active star-forming
region within Vela C) appears to have a transition at a lower number
density, suggesting that this may depend on the evolutionary state of
the cloud.
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Formation and Evolution of Galaxies: Observations in Infrared and other Wavelengths
This IAC research group carries out several extragalactic projects in different spectral ranges, using space as well as ground-based telescopes, to study the cosmological evolution of galaxies and the origin of nuclear activity in active galaxies. The group is a member of the international consortium which built the SPIRE instrument for the
Ismael
Pérez Fournon