Magnetic field orientation in self-gravitating turbulent molecular clouds

Abstract

ABSTRACT Stars form inside molecular cloud filaments from the competition of gravitational forces with turbulence and magnetic fields. The exact orientation of these filaments with the magnetic fields depends on the strength of these fields, the gravitational potential, and the line of sight (LOS) relative to the mean field. To disentangle these effects we employ three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamical numerical simulations that explore a wide range of initial turbulent and magnetic states, i.e. sub-Alfvénic to super-Alfvénic turbulence, with and without gravity. We use histogram of relative orientation (HRO) and the associated projected Rayleigh statistics (PRS) to study the orientation of density and, in order to compare with observations, the integrated density relative to the magnetic field. We find that in sub-Alfvénic systems the initial coherence of the magnetic is maintained inside the cloud and filaments form perpendicular to the field. This trend is not observed in super-Alfvénic models, where the lines are dragged by gravity and turbulence and filaments are mainly aligned to the field. The PRS analysis of integrated maps shows that LOS effects are important only for sub-Alfvénic clouds. When the LOS is perpendicular to the initial field orientation most of the filaments are perpendicular to the projected magnetic field. The inclusion of gravity increases the number of dense structures perpendicular to the magnetic field, reflected as lower values of the PRS for denser regions, regardless of whether the model is sub- or super-Alfvénic. The comparison of our results with observed molecular clouds reveals that most are compatible with sub-Alfvénic models.