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Morphology of magnetic field in high mass star formation region - W51 e2 and e8 cores

Image Credit: Tang et al.

Magnetic (B)-field maps of massive starformation region W51 e2/e8 from the SMA (red segments) at 870 μm and BIMA (blue segments) at 1.3 mm.

At 0.5 pc scale, the B field is uniform across the envelope, indicating that the B field is dominant over turbulence and the envelope is stable at this scale. At 0.02 pc scale, the B field lines are shaped by gravity. A hourglass-shape B field morphology is resolved toward the ultracompact HII region e2 and possibly also toward e8. These results indicate that the role of B field varies in different scales. (Tang et al. 2009, ApJ, 700, 251)