Abstract
ABSTRACTAmbipolar diffusion is the mechanism believed to be responsible for the loss of magnetic support in molecular cloud cores. This mechanism has been studied extensively both semianalytically and numerically. We build upon this existing body of work by considering diffusion in a self-gravitating isothermal layer with a sheared magnetic field geometry. Our results indicate that the presence of a sheared component eventually suppresses the diffusion of the central (nonsheared) magnetic field. As such, the isothermal layer can evolve into a final state with a low mass-to-magnetic flux ratio. This result suggests that sheared fields in molecular cores may thus act to inhibit collapse, and subsequently, star formation.
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