Magnetic Fields of the Youngest Protostellar System L1448 IRS 2 revealed by ALMA

  • Kwon, Woojin (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute) ;
  • Stephens, Ian W. (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) ;
  • Tobin, John J. (University of Oklahoma) ;
  • Looney, Leslie W. (University of Illinois) ;
  • Li, Zhi-Yun (University of Virginia) ;
  • Crutcher, Richard M. (University of Illinois) ;
  • Kim, Jongsoo (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute) ;
  • van der Tak, Floris F.S. (SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research)
  • Published : 2018.05.08

Abstract

Magnetic fields affect star formation in a broad range of scales from parsec to hundreds au. In particular, interferometric observations and ideal magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) simulations have reported that formation of a rotation-supported disk at the earliest young stellar objects (YSOs) is largely suppressed by magnetic fields aligned to the rotational axis of YSOs: magnetic braking. Our recent ALMA observations toward L1448 IRS 2, which has a rotation detected and its magnetic fields aligned to the rotation axis (poloidal fields) in ~500 au scales, show that the fields switch to toroidal at the center in ~100 au scales. This result suggests that magnetic braking may not be so catastrophic for early disk formation even in YSOs with magnetic fields aligned to the rotational axis.

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