B-fields And dust in interstelLar fiLAments using Dust POLarization (BALLAD-POL): III. Grain alignment and disruption mechanisms in G34.43+0.24 using polarization observations from JCMT/POL-2

TL;DR

This study investigates grain alignment and disruption mechanisms in a filamentary molecular cloud using polarization observations, revealing the roles of magnetic field tangling and radiative torques in polarization features.

Contribution

It provides new insights into grain alignment and disruption processes in G34.43+0.24, especially highlighting the effects of magnetic field tangling and radiative torques in different regions.

Findings

Polarization fraction decreases with increasing intensity and density.

Magnetic field tangling significantly causes depolarization in South region.

RAT alignment explains polarization in North and Center regions, with evidence of RAT-D in cores.

Abstract

Polarization of starlight and thermal dust emission due to aligned non-spherical grains helps us to trace magnetic field (B-field) morphology in molecular clouds and to study grain alignment mechanisms. In this work, we study grain alignment and disruption mechanisms in a filamentary infrared dark cloud G34.43+0.24 using thermal dust polarization observations from JCMT/POL-2 at 850 $\mu\text{m}$. We study in three sub-regions as North harboring MM3 core, Center harboring MM1 and MM2 cores and South having no core. We find the decrease in polarization fraction P with increasing total intensity and gas column density, known as polarization hole. To disentangle the effect of magnetic field tangling on the polarization hole, we estimate the polarization angle dispersion function. We find depolarizations in North and Center regions are due to decrease in net alignment efficiency of grains but in South region, effect of magnetic field tangling is significant to cause depolarization. To test whether RAdiative Torque (RAT) mechanism can reproduce the observational data, we calculate minimum alignment and disruption sizes of grains using RAT theory and our study finds that RAT alignment mechanism can explain the depolarizations in North and Center regions where B-field tangling effect is less important, except for core regions. We find hints of RAdiative Torque Disruption (RAT-D) in the core regions of MM3 in North, MM1 and MM2 in Center. We also find that the high P value of around 8-20% in the outer regions of the filament can be explained potentially by magnetically enhanced RAT alignment mechanism.