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The orientation of magnetic fields in molecular clouds encodes valuable
information on the processes responsible for their formation and support.
We use polarimetry data from 22 molecular clouds, obtained with the
University of Chicago's Stokes and Hertz polarimeters
to test three hypotheses: (a)
magnetic field oriented along short axis of cloud; (b) magnetic field
oriented along long axis of cloud; (c) random magnetic field orientation
with respect to cloud axes. Assuming that the inclination angles of
observed molecular clouds with respect to the line of sight are random,
each hypothesis predicts a distinct distribution of angles between the
projected, plane-of-the-sky magnetic field and the axes of the observed,
projected cloud. Utilizing appropriate test statistics, we evaluate the
compatibility of each hypothesis with our dataset.
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