2000/06/20 by Martin Houde, Pierre Bastien, Ruisheng Peng +4 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Atomic and Molecular Physics #Atomic physics #Field (mathematics) #Ion #Magnetic field #Molecule #Physics #Polyatomic ion #Quantum mechanics #Spectral line #Turbulence #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/308980
published as Astroph. J. (2000), 536, 857-864 · 16 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables
openalex publication_date 2000/06/20 · arxiv created 2003/11/14 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Observations of the effect of the magnetic field on its environment are usually achieved with techniques that rely on its interaction with the spin of the particles under study. Because of the relative weakness of this effect, extraction of the field characteristics proves to be a most challenging task. We take a totally different approach to the problem and show that the manifestation of the magnetic field can be directly observed by means of a comparison of the spectra of molecular ions with those of neutral molecules. This takes advantage of the strong cyclotron interaction between the ions and the field, but requires the presence of flows or turbulent motion in the gas. We compare our theory to data obtained on the OMC-1, OMC-2, OMC-3, and DR 21(OH) molecular clouds.