# Indirect evidence of significant grain growth in young protostellar envelopes from polarized dust emission

## TL;DR

This study uses polarized radiative transfer modeling to provide indirect evidence that significant dust grain growth occurs early in protostellar envelopes, potentially influencing planetesimal formation.

## Contribution

It demonstrates that large dust grains are necessary to explain observed polarized emission, implying early grain growth in young protostellar objects.

## Key findings

- Large grains (>10 micron) are needed to match observed polarization levels.
- Grain growth likely occurs within 100-1000 au scales in objects less than 10^5 years old.
- Polarized dust emission can serve as a probe for dust properties in early star formation stages.

## Abstract

How and when in the star formation sequence do dust grains start to grow into pebbles is a cornerstone question to both star and planet formation. We compute the polarized radiative transfer from a model solar-type protostellar core, using the POLARIS code, aligning the dust grains with the local magnetic field, following the radiative torques (RATs) theory. We test the dependency of the resulting dust polarized emission with the maximum grain size of the dust size distribution at the envelope scale, from amax = 1 micron to 50 micron. Our work shows that, in the framework of RAT alignment, large dust grains are required to produce polarized dust emission at levels similar to those currently observed in solar-type protostellar envelopes at millimeter wavelengths. Considering the current theoretical dificulties to align a large fraction of small ISM-like grains in the conditions typical of protostellar envelopes, our results suggest that grain growth (typically > 10 micron) might have already significantly progressed at scales 100-1000 au in the youngest objects, observed less than 10^5 years after the onset of collapse. Observations of dust polarized emission might open a new avenue to explore dust pristine properties and describe, for example, the initial conditions for the formation of planetesimals.