Studies of Magnetic Field Structures in Infrared Dark Clouds

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24540233
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Astronomy
• Research Institution: Nagoya City University
• Principal Investigator: SUGITANI Koji 名古屋市立大学, システム自然科学研究科, 教授 (80192615)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): NAKAMURA Fumitaka 国立天文台, 理論研究部, 准教授 (20291354) ; WATANABE Makoto 北海道大学, 理学研究院, 特任助教 (10450181) ; NAGAYAMA Takahiro 北海道大学, 理工学研究科, 准教授 (00533275) ; NISHIYAMA Shogo 宮城教育大学, 教育学部, 准教授 (20377948)
• Research Collaborator: KUSUNE Takayoshi ; OKADA Masataka
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 国際研究者交流 / 赤外線暗黒星雲 / 星間磁場 / 星間偏光 / 赤外線観測

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Infrared dark clouds (IRDCs) have been recently recognized by spaceborne, infrared surveys. They are considered to be in the early evolutional stage of molecular clouds and to be good targets to examine the initial conditions of massive star/cluster formation. There are many molecular-line and continuum observations in millimeter wavelengths to explore their density structures and internal gas motions, but few observations to explore their magnetic field structures. We have made near-infrared polarimetric observations for several IRDCs with filaments and found that the main filaments are perpendicular to the magnetic field directions deduced from the observations in two IRDCs. This suggests that the magnetic field play a significant role in the evolution and formation of the molecular cloud.

Free Research Field

天文学