| Name: | Tamojeet Roychowdhury |
| Affiliation: | Indian Institute of Technology Bombay |
| Conference ID : | ASI2024_48 |
| Title : | Unveiling the Role of Magnetic Fields in Bok Globules |
| Authors : | Tamojeet Roychowdhury (1), Thushara G.S. Pillai (2) |
| Authors Affiliation: | 1. Tamojeet Roychowdhury, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai - 400076, India
2. Thushara G.S. Pillai, MIT Haystack Observatory, Westford, Massachusetts - 01886, USA |
| Mode of Presentation: | Poster |
| Abstract Category : | Stars, Interstellar Medium, and Astrochemistry in Milky Way |
| Abstract : | Bok globules are small, dense clouds that act as isolated precursors for the formation of single or binary stars. Although recent dust polarization surveys, primarily with Planck, have demonstrated that molecular clouds are strongly magnetized, the significance of magnetic fields in Bok globules has largely been limited to individual case studies, without a broader statistical understanding. In this work, we introduce a comprehensive optical polarimetric survey of 21 Bok globules. Using Gaia and near-IR photometric data, we were able to produce extinction maps for each target. This allows us to compare the relative orientations of the cloud structures with the surrounding magnetic field. Furthermore, combined with archival gas velocity dispersion measurements, we calculate the average magnetic field strength for each target using the David-Chandrasekhar-Fermi technique. We also provide values for the Alfvén Mach numbers and the mass-to-magnetic flux ratios for most of our targets. Our findings suggest that magnetic fields have a significant dynamic influence on the evolution of Bok Globules.
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