Probing 3D magnetic fields using thermal dust polarization and grain alignment theory

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method combining thermal dust polarization and grain alignment physics to accurately infer the three-dimensional magnetic field structure in astrophysical environments, improving over previous techniques.

Contribution

The paper develops a physical model based on modern grain alignment theory and demonstrates its effectiveness in constraining 3D magnetic fields from synthetic observations.

Findings

The method accurately constrains the B-field inclination angle.

It outperforms previous methods assuming uniform grain alignment.

The approach enables better understanding of dust properties and grain alignment physics.

Abstract

Magnetic fields are ubiquitous in the universe and are thought to play an important role in various astrophysical processes. Polarization of thermal dust emission from dust grains aligned with the magnetic field is widely used to measure the two-dimensional magnetic field projected onto the plane of the sky (POS), but the component along the line of sight (LOS) is not yet reliably constrained with dust polarization. Here, we introduce a new method to infer three-dimensional (3D) magnetic fields using thermal dust polarization and grain alignment physics. We first develop a physical model of thermal dust polarization using the modern grain alignment theory based on the magnetically enhanced radiative torque (MRAT) alignment theory. We then test this model with synthetic observations of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of a filamentary cloud with our updated POLARIS code. Combining the tested physical polarization model with synthetic polarization, we show that the B-field inclination angle can be accurately constrained by the polarization degree from synthetic observations. Compared to the true 3D magnetic fields, our method with grain alignment is more accurate than the previous methods that assume uniform grain alignment. This new technique paves the way for tracing 3D B-fields using thermal dust polarization and grain alignment theory and for constraining dust properties and grain alignment physics.