Abstract
Magnetic field is believed to play an important role in the collapse of a molecular cloud. In particular, due to the properties of magnetic forces, collapse should be easier along magnetic field lines, as supported by the large-scale sheet-like structure of the Taurus giant molecular cloud for instance. Here we investigate whether such a prefered orientation for collapse is present at a much smaller scale, that of individual objects. We use recent high-angular resolution images of T Tauri stars located in the Taurus star-forming region to find the orientation of the symmetry axis of each star+jet+disk system and compare it to that of the local magnetic field. We find that i) the orientations of the symmetry axis of T Tauri stars are not random with respect to the magnetic field, and ii) that young stars that are associated to a jet or an outflow are oriented very di erently from those which do not have a detected outflow. We present some implications of this puzzling new result.
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Duchêne, G., Ménard, F. (2003). On the Alignment of T Tauri Stars with the Local Magnetic Field. In: Lépine, J., Gregorio-Hetem, J. (eds) Open Issues in Local Star Formation. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 299. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2600-5_34
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2600-5_34
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-1755-1
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