# The link between magnetic fields and filamentary clouds II: Bimodal linear mass distributions

## TL;DR

This study examines how magnetic field orientations influence the linear mass distribution and fragmentation of molecular clouds, revealing that perpendicular alignments lead to more uniform mass distributions.

## Contribution

It provides observational evidence linking magnetic field orientation to the mass distribution and fragmentation patterns in molecular clouds.

## Key findings

- Perpendicular cloud-field orientations correlate with more uniform mass distributions.
- Magnetic fields influence the fragmentation process of molecular clouds.
- Supports previous theories on magnetic field impact on cloud structure.

## Abstract

By comparing cumulative linear mass profiles of 12 Gould Belt molecular clouds within 500 pc, we study how the linear mass distributions of molecular clouds vary with the angles between the molecular cloud long axes and the directions of the local magnetic fields (cloud-field direction offsets). We find that molecular clouds with the long axes perpendicular to the magnetic field directions show more even distributions of the linear mass. The result supports that magnetic field orientations can affect the fragmentation of molecular clouds (Li et al. 2017).