A Survey of Magnetic Field Strengths in the Envelopes of Molecular Clouds via the 18 cm OH Zeeman Effect [GA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1907.11940


We present the results of an extensive Arecibo observational survey of magnetic field strengths in the inter-core regions of molecular clouds to determine their role in the evolution and collapse of molecular clouds as a whole. Sensitive 18 cm OH Zeeman observations of absorption lines from Galactic molecular gas in the direction of extragalactic continuum sources yielded 38 independent measurements of magnetic field strengths. Zeeman detections were achieved at the three sigma level toward 9 clouds, while the others revealed sensitive upper limits to the magnetic field strength. Our results suggest that total field strengths in the inter-core regions of GMCs are about 15 microgauss.

Read this paper on arXiv…

K. Thompson, T. Troland and C. Heiles
Tue, 30 Jul 19
69/79

Comments: 26 pages, 2 tables, 20 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ. The complete set of figures will be published only electronically