When turbulence beats magnetism: origin of massive star cluster seeds

TL;DR

This study provides statistical evidence that turbulence, rather than magnetic fields, predominantly influences the formation and alignment of condensations in massive star-forming regions, challenging classical models.

Contribution

It demonstrates through observations and simulations that turbulence can override magnetic fields in shaping star-forming condensations, a novel insight into massive star formation processes.

Findings

Condensation elongations align with local B fields in turbulent-dominated models.

Models with dominant B fields show perpendicular alignment of condensations.

Turbulence may reduce magnetic braking, aiding large disk formation.

Abstract

High-mass stars form in protoclusters, where gravo-magnetic processes shape collapsing clouds and clumps to be elongated preferentially perpendicular to magnetic (B) fields. Yet it remains unclear whether gravo-magnetic processes still govern the formation of smaller-scale condensations in massive-star-forming protoclusters, which are crucial for understanding the stellar initial mass function and multiplicity. Here we report the first statistical evidence that the condensation elongations are preferentially aligned with local B fields, based on high-resolution data from the largest dust polarization survey toward 30 massive star-forming regions with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Our clustered massive star formation simulations reveal that this more parallel alignment is exclusively observed in models where initial turbulence dominates B fields. In contrast, models with initial B fields dominating turbulence distinctly exhibit a more perpendicular alignment. The comparison between observations and simulations suggests that turbulence could play a more important role than B fields in the formation of condensations in the context of clustered massive star formation, contradicting the prediction of classical magnetically regulated models. Moreover, we find a possibly turbulence-induced preferential misalignment between the B field and rotation axis of condensations, which may potentially reduce the magnetic braking efficiency and facilitate the formation of large protostellar disks.