Sign on

SAO/NASA ADS Astronomy Abstract Service

· Find Similar Abstracts (with default settings below)
· Full Refereed Journal Article (PDF/Postscript)
· Full Refereed Scanned Article (GIF)
· References in the article
· Citations to the Article (41) (Citation History)
· Refereed Citations to the Article
· SIMBAD Objects (16)
· Reads History
·
· Translate This Page
Title:
OH masers and the Galactic magnetic field
Authors:
Reid, M. J.; Silverstein, E. M.
Affiliation:
AA(Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA), AB(Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA)
Publication:
Astrophysical Journal, Part 1 (ISSN 0004-637X), vol. 361, Oct. 1, 1990, p. 483-486. (ApJ Homepage)
Publication Date:
10/1990
Category:
Astrophysics
Origin:
STI
NASA/STI Keywords:
HYDROXYL EMISSION, INTERSTELLAR MAGNETIC FIELDS, INTERSTELLAR MASERS, MOLECULAR CLOUDS, STAR FORMATION, ZEEMAN EFFECT, VERY LARGE ARRAY (VLA), VERY LONG BASE INTERFEROMETRY
DOI:
10.1086/169212
Bibliographic Code:
1990ApJ...361..483R

Abstract

Zeeman splitting of OH maser lines yields the line-of-sight direction and the full magnitude of the magnetic field in the molecular gas in which the maser action occurs. The line-of-sight direction of the magnetic field from 17 maser sources indicates a systematic magnetic field over large regions of the Galaxy. This result suggests that the magnetic field direction is largely preserved during contraction from interstellar densities (about 1/cu cm), through those of giant molecular clouds (about 1000/cu cm), to those of OH masers (about 10 to the 7th/cu cm) near newly formed massive stars, and that the Galactic magnetic field is a dominant force in the process of collapse toward stellar densities. Also, this result confirms conclusions based on rotation measures of pulsars and extragalactic radio sources that there is a large-scale Galactic field, and it offers a new and powerful method to determine the magnetic field structure in the entire disk of the Galaxy.

Printing Options

Print whole paper
Print Page(s) through

Return 600 dpi PDF to Acrobat/Browser. Different resolutions (200 or 600 dpi), formats (Postscript, PDF, etc), page sizes (US Letter, European A4, etc), and compression (gzip,compress,none) can be set through the Printing Preferences


More Article Retrieval Options

HELP for Article Retrieval
Bibtex entry for this abstract   Preferred format for this abstract (see Preferences)
  New!

Find Similar Abstracts:

Use: Authors
Title
Keywords (in text query field)
Abstract Text
Return: Query Results Return    items starting with number
Query Form
Database: Astronomy
Physics
arXiv e-prints