Magnetically-regulated fragmentation of a massive, dense and turbulent clump

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution ALMA observations to show that magnetic fields significantly influence the fragmentation of a massive, dense, and turbulent gas clump, supporting theoretical models of magnetic regulation in star formation.

Contribution

First observational evidence demonstrating the dominant role of magnetic fields in the fragmentation of a massive turbulent clump during early star formation stages.

Findings

Fragmentation occurs along filamentary structures with many cores.

The distribution and mass of cores align with magnetic field-dominated models.

Magnetic fields likely regulate the number and arrangement of fragments.

Abstract

Massive stars, multiple stellar systems and clusters are born from the gravitational collapse of massive dense gaseous clumps, and the way these systems form strongly depends on how the parent clump fragments into cores during collapse. Numerical simulations show that magnetic fields may be the key ingredient in regulating fragmentation. Here we present ALMA observations at ~0.25'' resolution of the thermal dust continuum emission at ~278 GHz towards a turbulent, dense, and massive clump, IRAS 16061-5048c1, in a very early evolutionary stage. The ALMA image shows that the clump has fragmented into many cores along a filamentary structure. We find that the number, the total mass and the spatial distribution of the fragments are consistent with fragmentation dominated by a strong magnetic field. Our observations support the theoretical prediction that the magnetic field plays a dominant role in the fragmentation process of massive turbulent clump.