The influence of magnetic field on the CNM mass fraction and its alignment with density structures

TL;DR

This study uses MHD simulations to explore how magnetic field strength influences the cold neutral medium's (CNM) mass fraction and its alignment with magnetic fields, revealing that stronger fields reduce CNM mass and weaken alignment.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the magnetic field's role in CNM segregation and structure alignment in the local interstellar medium through detailed simulations.

Findings

CNM mass fraction decreases with increasing magnetic field strength

Alignment between CNM structures and magnetic fields weakens as field strength increases

Self-gravity has limited impact on CNM properties within the studied parameters

Abstract

To contribute to the understanding of the magnetic field's influence on the segregation of CNM in the solar neighbourhood we analyse MHD simulations which include the main physical characteristics of the local neutral atomic ISM. The simulations have a continuous solenoidal Fourier forcing in a periodic box of 100 pc per side and an initial uniform magnetic field ($\vec{B_0}$) with intensities ranging between $\sim 0.4$ $\mu$G and $\sim 8$ $\mu$G. Our main results are: i) the CNM mass fraction diminishes with the increase in magnetic field intensity. ii) There is a preferred alignment between CNM structures and $\vec{B}$ in all our $B_0$ range but the preference weakens as $B_{0}$ increases. It is worth noticing that this preference is also present in two-dimensional projections making an extreme angle ($0$ or $\pi / 2$) with respect to $\vec{B_0}$ and it is only lost for the strongest magnetic field when the angle of projection is perpendicular to $\vec{B_0}$. iii) The aforementioned results are prevalent despite the inclusion of self-gravity in our continuously forced simulations with a mean density similar to the average value of the solar neighbourhood. iv) Given a fixed $B_0$ and slightly higher mean densities, up to double, the effects of self-gravity are still not qualitatively significant.