|
The fact that the role and importance of magnetic fields in the process of star formation remain unclear is largely due to the many difficulties of probing magnetic fields in molecular clouds. While the Zeeman effect still provides the only direct way of measuring the strength of (generally the line-of-sight component of) magnetic fields, its weakness in the interstellar medium limits the types of environments and number of regions where detections can successfully be obtained. Therefore, in this review I will focus on recent improvements brought to existing measurement techniques (e.g., linear polarization from dust), as well as on the developments of new methods to help elucidate the role of magnetic fields in the early phase of star formation.
|
