“School of Astronomy”
Back to Papers HomeBack to Papers of School of Astronomy
| Paper IPM / Astronomy / 16098 |
|
||||||
| Abstract: | |||||||
|
The role of the magnetic fields in the formation and quenching of stars with different
mass is unknown. We studied the energy balance and the star formation efficiency in a sample
of molecular clouds in the central kpc region of NGC 1097, known to be highly magnetized.
Combining the full polarization VLA/radio continuum observations with the HST/Hñ, Pañ
and the SMA/CO lines observations, we separated the thermal and non-thermal synchrotron
emission and compared the magnetic, turbulent, and thermal pressures. Most of the molecular
clouds are magnetically supported against gravitational collapse needed to form cores of massive
stars. The massive star formation efficiency of the clouds also drops with the magnetic field
strength, while it is uncorrelated with turbulence (Tabatabaei et al. 2018). The inefficiency of
the massive star formation and the low-mass stellar population in the center of NGC 1097 can be
explained in the following steps: I) Magnetic fields supporting the molecular clouds prevent the
collapse of gas to densities needed to form massive stars. II) These clouds can then be fragmented
into smaller pieces due to e.g., stellar feedback, non-linear perturbations and instabilities leading
to local, small-scale diffusion of the magnetic fields. III) Self-gravity overcomes and the smaller
clouds seed the cores of the low-mass stars.
Download TeX format |
|||||||
| back to top | |||||||
