SMA observations of polarized dust emission in solar-type Class 0 protostars: Magnetic field properties at envelope scales

Galametz M.; Maury A. J.; Girart J.M.; Rao R.; Zhang Q.; Gaudel M.; Valdivia V.; Keto E.; Lai S.-P.

Published in A&A, SEPTEMBER 2018

We investigated the polarized dust emission, tracing the magnetic field topology at envelope scales in 12 very young protostars using the sub-mm interferometer SMA, located in Hawaii. We report the detection of magnetic field at scales 600-5000 astronomical units (one unit is the distance from the Sun to Earth) in all the circumstellar envelopes of our stellar embryos ! Our analysis shows that the envelope-scale magnetic field might preferentially observed either aligned or perpendicular to the outflow direction.



Interestingly, our results suggest for the first time a relation between the orientation of the magnetic field and the rotational energy of envelopes, with a larger occurrence of misalignment in sources in which strong rotational motions are detected at hundreds to thousands of au scales. We also show that the best agreement between the magnetic field and outflow orientation is found in sources showing no small-scale multiplicity and no large disks at∼100 au scales.