Physical conditions for dust grain alignment in Class 0 protostellar cores I. Observations of dust polarization and molecular irradiation tracers

TL;DR

This study investigates the physical conditions enabling dust grain alignment in Class 0 protostellar cores by analyzing ALMA polarization data and molecular tracers, revealing the influence of radiation fields and shocks on dust polarization.

Contribution

It provides new observational insights into how radiation and shocks affect dust grain alignment in protostellar envelopes, highlighting the roles of cavity walls and core regions.

Findings

CCH emission peaks at outflow cavity walls where polarization is enhanced

Correlation between polarized intensity morphology and CCH emission suggests radiation influences grain alignment

Shocks along cavity walls may contribute photons aiding dust grain alignment

Abstract

High angular resolution observations of Class 0 protostars have produced detailed maps of the polarized dust emission in the envelopes of these young embedded objects. Interestingly, the improved sensitivity brought by ALMA has revealed wide dynamic ranges of polarization fractions, with specific locations harboring surprisingly large amounts of polarized dust emission. Our aim is to characterize the grain alignment conditions and dust properties responsible for the observed polarized dust emission in the inner envelopes (~1000 au) of Class 0 protostars. We analyzed the polarized dust emission maps obtained with ALMA and compared them to molecular line emission maps of specific molecular tracers, mainly CCH, which allowed us to probe one of the key components in dust grain alignment theories: the irradiation field. We show that CCH peaks toward outflow cavity walls, where the polarized dust emission is also enhanced. Our analysis provides a tentative correlation between the morphology of the polarized intensity and CCH emission, suggesting that the radiation field impinging on the cavity walls favors both the grain alignment and the warm carbon chain chemistry in these regions. We propose that shocks happening along outflow cavity walls could potentially represent an additional source of photons contributing to dust grain alignment. However, some parts of the cores, such as the equatorial planes, exhibit enhanced polarized flux, although no radiation driven chemistry is observed, for example where radiative torques are theoretically not efficient enough. This suggests that additional physical conditions, such as source geometry and dust grain evolution, may play a role in grain alignment.