Formation of proto-multiple stellar systems in a magnetized, fragmenting filament Chat Hull Harvard/NRAO, Cambridge, US
In just the past few years, it has become clear that filamentary structures are present in the star-formation process across many orders of magnitude in spatial scale, from the galactic scales probed by Planck and Herschel all the way down to the AU-scale structures that ALMA has revealed within protoplanetary disks. A similar story can be told of magnetic fields, which play a role in star formation across the same vast range of size scales. Here I show filamentary structures near three protostars in the Serpens Main star-forming region, as seen with both CARMA (at 1000 AU scales) and ALMA (at 150 AU scales!). Even at such high resolution, the ALMA data reveal that the main sources have a number of nearby condensations/companions, which may be the beginnings of multiple star systems. Additionally, the filamentary structures along which these companions lie coincide in a tantalizing way with the magnetic fields we mapped with CARMA. The morphology of the magnetic fields both in the filamentary companions and toward the peaks of the cores will be revealed by new Cycle 2 ALMA polarization data. These data comprise the highest resolution observations to date of polarized dust emission from Class 0 protostars, and will shed light on the role of magnetic fields in the formation of filaments, inner envelopes, and protoplanetary disks at ~100 AU scales.
Caption: ALMA and CARMA observations of two Class 0 protostellar cores in the Serpens Main star-forming region. The black contours trace the CARMA 1.3 mm dust continuum; the line segments represent the inferred magnetic field orientation from the CARMA polarization data. The colorscale shows the ALMA 1.3 mm dust continuum data, highlighting tiny filamentary condensations that lie along the CARMA magnetic field. The red and blue arrows indicate the red- and blueshifted outflow lobes emanating from the two protostars.
Collaborators: J.M. Girart, ICE, ES R. Plambeck, UCB, US R. Crutcher, UIUC, US Z.-Y. Li, UVa, US S.-P. Lai, NTHU, TW P. Cortes, ALMA, CL R. Rao, ASIAA, US M. Dunham, CfA, US and the TADPOL collaboration	Key publication Suggested Session: Magnetic Fields