A model of magnetic field structure is presented to help test the prevalence of flux freezing in star-forming clouds of various shapes, orientations, and degrees of central concentration, and to estimate their magnetic field strength.The model is based on weak-field flux freezing in centrally condensed Plummer spheres and spheroids of oblate and prolate shape. For a spheroid of given density contrast, aspect ratio, and inclination, the model estimates the local field strength and direction, and the global field pattern of hourglass shape. Comparisons with a polarization simulation indicate typical angle agreement within 1 -10 degrees.Scalable analytic expressions are given to match observed polarization patterns, and to provide inputs to radiative transfer codes for more accurate predictions.The model may apply to polarization observations of dense cores, elongated filamentary clouds, and magnetized circumstellar disks. keywords: ISM: clouds¾stars: formation 350 µm showed evidence of the hourglass polarization pattern expected in simple models of flux freezing (Schleuning 1998). Submillimeter observations with the JCMT SCUPOL instrument (Matthews et al. 2009) and with the Planck satellite (Planck Collaboration I. 2016) show highly ordered polarization directions in and around numerous star-forming clouds. The Planck polarization directions agree well with those of near-infrared observations of the same regions. This agreement supports the idea of magnetic grain alignment in star-forming regions, on scales of a few 0.1 pc to a few 10 pc (Soler et al. 2016). At the same time the large-scale structure of nearby star-forming clouds has become available in much greater detail, due to imaging in near-infrared dust extinction by wide-field array cameras (e.g. Lombardi et al. 2006) and due to imaging in far-infrared dust emission by the Herschel satellite (e.g. André et al. 2010). Ordered polarization is seen in the Musca, B211, and L1506 filamentary dark clouds at 1 mm wavelength, where Planck polarization directions lie within 10 deg of perpendicular to the crest direction in the denser Musca and B211 filaments, while they are parallel to the crest direction in the less dense filament L1506 (Planck Collaboration Int. XXXIII 2016). Similarly, polarization directions are observed to be mostly perpendicular to the massive infrared dark cloud filament G11.11-0.12 (Pillai et al. 2016). Recent improvements in the sensitivity and resolution of polarization measurements at far-infrared and submillimeter wavelengths offer new opportunities to relate detailed maps of dust polarization to corresponding maps of dust column density. These include the balloon-borne BLAST-Pol mission (Fissel et al. 2016) and the JCMT BISTRO survey (Pattle et al. 2017), which have made polarization maps of large-scale clouds and filaments. Along with the SAO Submillimeter Array (SMA; Blundell 2007), ALMA (Cox 2016), and SOFIA (Zinnecker et al. 2015) which provide finer angular resolution, these facilities offer an order of magnitude increase in the t...
We develop a magnetic ribbon model for molecular cloud filaments. These result from turbulent compression in a molecular cloud in which the background magnetic field sets a preferred direction. We argue that this is a natural model for filaments and is based on the interplay between turbulence, strong magnetic fields, and gravitationallydriven ambipolar diffusion, rather than pure gravity and thermal pressure. An analytic model for the formation of magnetic ribbons that is based on numerical simulations is used to derive a lateral width of a magnetic ribbon. This differs from the thickness along the magnetic field direction, which is essentially the Jeans scale. We use our model to calculate a synthetic observed relation between apparent width in projection versus observed column density. The relationship is relatively flat, similar to observations, and unlike the simple expectation based on a Jeans length argument.
We present the current status of the analytic theory of brown dwarf evolution and the lower mass limit of the hydrogen burning main sequence stars. In the spirit of a simplified analytic theory we also introduce some modifications to the existing models. We give an exact expression for the pressure of an ideal non-relativistic Fermi gas at a finite temperature, therefore allowing for non-zero values of the degeneracy parameter (ψ = kT µ F , where µ F is the Fermi energy). We review the derivation of surface luminosity using an entropy matching condition and the first-order phase transition between the molecular hydrogen in the outer envelope and the partially-ionized hydrogen in the inner region. We also discuss the results of modern simulations of the plasma phase transition, which illustrate the uncertainties in determining its critical temperature. Based on the existing models and with some simple modification we find the maximum mass for a brown dwarf to be in the range 0.064M ⊙ − 0.087M ⊙ . An analytic formula for the luminosity evolution allows us to estimate the time period of the non-steady state (i.e., non-main sequence) nuclear burning for substellar objects. Standard models also predict that stars that are just above the substellar mass limit can reach an extremely low luminosity main sequence after at least a few million years of evolution, and sometimes much longer. We estimate that ≃ 11% of stars take longer than 10 7 yr to reach the main-sequence, and ≃ 5% of stars take longer than 10 8 yr.
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