Large-scale magnetic field in the Monoceros OB-1 East molecular cloud

Abstract

We study the large-scale magnetic field structure and its interplay with the gas dynamics in the Monoceros OB1 East molecular cloud. We combine observations of dust polarised emission from the Planck telescope and CO molecular line emission observations from the Taeduk Radio Astronomy Observatory 14-metre telescope. We calculate the strength of the plane-of-the-sky magnetic field using a modified Chandrasekhar-Fermi method and estimate mass over flux ratios in different regions of the cloud. We use the comparison of the velocity and intensity gradients of the molecular line observations with the polarimetric observations to trace dynamically active regions. The molecular complex shows an ordered large-scale plane-of-the-sky magnetic field structure. In the Northern part, it is mostly orientated along the filamentary structures while the Southern part shows at least two regions with distinct magnetic field orientations. We find that in the Northern filaments the magnetic field is unlikely to provide support against fragmentation at large scales. Our analysis reveals a shock region in the Northern part of the complex right in-between two filamentary clouds which were previously suggested to be in collision. Moreover, the shock seems to extend farther towards the Western part of the complex. In the Southern part, we find that either the magnetic field guides the accretion of interstellar matter towards the cloud or it was dragged by the matter towards the densest regions. The large-scale magnetic field in Monoceros OB-1 East molecular clouds is tightly connected to the global structure of the complex and, in the Northern part, it seems to be dominated by gravity and turbulence, while in the Southern part it influences the structuring of matter.