Colloq Abstract - Fissel
March 22, 2019
11:00am Mountain
Laura Fissel (NRAO)
Studying Star Formation from the Stratosphere
Abstract
The conversion of gas into stars is an extremely inefficient process, due to regulation from a combination of turbulent gas motions, magnetic fields, and feedback from young stars. Of these the role played by magnetic fields is particularly poorly constrained, largely because of the difficulty of making direct observations. In this talk, I will discuss what we have learned about magnetic fields in star formation, with a particular focus on results from the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Sub-mm Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol). BLASTPol operates 38km above the Earth’s surface (above 99.5% of the atmosphere), mapping polarized radiation from dust grains aligned with their local magnetic field. By statistically comparing detailed BLASTPol-inferred magnetic field maps of the nearby giant molecular cloud Vela C with simulations, we find that magnetic fields play an important role in the formation of both low- and high-density gas sub-structures. Our next-generation balloon-borne polarimeter, BLAST-TNG, is scheduled for a first Antarctic flight in December 2019. With BLAST-TNG we will apply these same analysis techniques to a larger sample of clouds with 5x better resolution, and quantitatively determine the extent to which magnetic fields affect star formation efficiency.
