HI-H$_2$ transition: exploring the role of the magnetic field

TL;DR

This study investigates the influence of magnetic fields on the atomic to molecular gas transition in interstellar filaments, revealing magnetic field strength, turbulence properties, and structural alignments that impact ISM modeling.

Contribution

It provides new observational insights into magnetic field strength, morphology, and dynamics during the HI-H2 transition in a specific interstellar filament.

Findings

Magnetic field strength is 20-30 μG and remains constant across regions.

Turbulence is sub-Alfvénic, indicating magnetic dominance.

Magnetic field orientation shifts from parallel to perpendicular relative to HI structures during transition.

Abstract

Atomic gas in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) is organized in filamentary structures. These structures usually host cold and dense molecular clumps. The Galactic magnetic field is considered to play an important role in the formation of these clumps. Our goal is to explore the role of the magnetic field in the HI - H$_{2}$ transition process. We targeted a filamentary cloud where gas transitions from atomic to molecular. This cloud is located at the edges of an expanding structure, known as the North Celestial Pole Loop (NCPL). We probed the magnetic field properties of the cloud with optical polarization observations. We performed multi-wavelength spectroscopic observations of different species in order to probe the gas phase properties of the cloud. We identified two distinct sub-regions within the cloud. One of the regions hosts purely atomic gas, while the other is dominated by molecular gas although most of it is CO-dark. The estimated plane-of-the-sky magnetic field strength between the two regions remains constant within uncertainties and lies in the range 20 ~ 30$~\mu$G. The total magnetic field strength does not scale with density which implies that gas is compressed along the field lines. We also found that turbulence is sub-Alfv\'enic. The HI velocity gradients are in general perpendicular to the mean magnetic field orientation, except for the region close to the CO clump where they tend to become parallel. The latter is likely related to gas undergoing gravitational infall. The magnetic field morphology of the target cloud is parallel to the HI column density structure of the cloud in the atomic region, while it tends to become perpendicular to the HI structure in the molecular region. If this is verified in more cases it has important consequences for the ISM magnetic field modeling with HI data.