- Lectures
- Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Location
R1412 of the Astronomy-Mathematics Building, National Taiwan University
- Speaker Name
Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc [Vietnam National Space Center]
- State
Definitive
- Url
Studying magnetic fields and dust alignment mechanisms using dust polarization observations
Abstract
Magnetic fields (B-fields) are believed to play an essential role in the formation and evolution of interstellar clouds and protostars. A vast amount of polarization data from thermal dust emission has made significant progress in studying B-fields and dust in star-forming regions. In this talk, I will present our studies on B-fields toward several molecular clouds using SOFIA/HAWC+ and JCMT/Pol-2. Then, I will focus on probing dust physics, including grain alignment (RAT-A) and rotational disruption (RAT-D) due to radiative torques (RATs), toward several filaments. Our numerical modelings using RAT theory can successfully reproduce maps of polarization fraction from observational data. Our results can explain the decrease of the polarization fraction toward the dense regions (aka. polarization holes), provide more robust evidence for the RAT paradigm, and insights into dust grains.