Magnetic Fields in Molecular Clouds

We present a set of numerical simulations addressing the effects of magnetic field strength and orientation on the flow-driven formation of molecular clouds. Fields perpendicular to the flows sweeping up the cloud can efficiently prevent the formation of massive clouds but permit the build-up of cold, diffuse filaments. Fields aligned with the flows lead to substantial clouds, whose degree of fragmentation and turbulence strongly depends on the background field strength. Addi...

Magnetic fields of molecular clouds in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) have been relatively underobserved at sub-parsec resolution. Here we report JCMT/POL2 observations of polarized dust emission in the CMZ, which reveal magnetic field structures in dense gas at ~0.5 pc resolution. The eleven molecular clouds in our sample including two in the western part of the CMZ (Sgr C and a far-side cloud candidate), four around the Galactic longitude 0 (the 50 km s-1 cloud, CO0.02-0....

We present our current understanding of the formation and early evolution of protostars, protoplanetary disks, and the driving of outflows as dictated by the interplay of magnetic fields and partially ionized gas in molecular cloud cores. In recent years, the field has witnessed enormous development through sub-millimeter observations which in turn have constrained models of protostar formation. As a result of these observations % that the observations provided, the state-of-...

Stars form within molecular clouds but our understanding of this fundamental process remains hampered by the complexity of the physics that drives their evolution. We review our observational and theoretical knowledge of molecular clouds trying to confront the two approaches wherever possible. After a broad presentation of the cold interstellar medium and molecular clouds, we emphasize the dynamical processes with special focus to turbulence and its impact on cloud evolution....

Truncated abstract: The formation of a protostellar disc is a natural outcome during the star formation process. As gas in a molecular cloud core collapses under self-gravity, the angular momentum of the gas will slow its collapse on small scales and promote the formation of a protostellar disc. Although the angular momenta of dense star-forming cores remain to be fully characterized observationally, existing data indicates that typical cores have enough angular momenta to fo...

A key ingredient in the evolution of galaxies is the star formation cycle. Recent progress in the study of magnetic fields is revealing the close connection between star formation and its effect on the small-scale structure in the magnetized interstellar medium (ISM). In this contribution we describe how the modern generation of radio telescopes is being used to probe the physics of the ISM through sensitive multiwavelength surveys of gas and magnetic fields, from the inner s...

{Magnetic fields exist on all scales in our Galaxy. There is a controversy about whether the magnetic fields in molecular clouds are preserved from the permeated magnetic fields in the interstellar medium (ISM) during cloud formation. We investigate this controversy using available data in the light of the newly revealed magnetic field structure of the Galactic disk obtained from pulsar rotation measures (RMs).} % {We collected measurements of the magnetic fields in molecular...

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 sig...

The role of outflows in the formation of stars and the protostellar disks that generate them is a central question in astrophysics. Outflows are associated with star formation across the entire stellar mass spectrum. In this review, we describe the observational, theoretical, and computational advances on magnetized outflows, and their role in the formation of disks and stars of all masses in turbulent, magnetized clouds. The ability of torques exerted on disks by magnetized ...

The magnetic field of molecular clouds (MCs) plays an important role in the process of star formation: it determins the statistical properties of supersonic turbulence that controls the fragmentation of MCs, controls the angular momentum transport during the protostellar collapse, and affects the stability of circumstellar disks. In this work, we focus on the problem of the determination of the magnetic field strength. We review the idea that the MC turbulence is super-Alfv\'...