2003/06/06 by Hiroshi Imai, S. Horiuchi, Shinji Horiuchi +2 · 1 citation
Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Chemistry #Circular polarization #Geometry #Laser #Linear polarization #Magnetic field #Maser #Molecular Spectroscopy and Structure #Optics #Perpendicular #Physics #Polarization (electrochemistry) #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/377198
published as Astrophys.J. 595 (2003) 285-293 · 19 pages, 5 files, 1 table, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal vol. 595, No.1 (2003 September 20 issue)
arxiv created 2003/06/06 · openalex publication_date 2003/09/16 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present a magnetic field mapping of water maser clouds in the star-forming region W3 IRS 5, which has been made on the basis of the linear polarization VLBI observation. Using the Very Long Baseline Array at 22.2 GHz, 16 of 61 detected water masers were found to be linearly polarized with polarization degrees up to 13%. Although 10 polarized features were widely distributed in the whole W3 IRS 5 water maser region, they had position angles similar to the magnetic field vectors (~75° east from the north). The magnetic field vectors are roughly perpendicular to the spatial alignments of the maser features. They are consistent with the hourglass model of the magnetic field, which was previously proposed to explain the magnetic field in the whole W3 Main region ( r ~ 0.1 pc). They are, on the other hand, not aligned to the directions of maser feature proper motions observed previously. This implies that the W3 IRS 5 magnetic field was controlled by a collapse of the W3 Main molecular cloud rather than by the outflow originated from W3 IRS 5.