THE MAGNETIC FIELD IN TAURUS PROBED BY INFRARED POLARIZATION

Abstract

We present maps of the plane-of-sky magnetic field within two regions of the Taurus molecular cloud: one in the dense core L1495/B213 filament and the other in a diffuse region to the west. The field is measured from the polarization of background starlight seen through the cloud. In total, we measured 287 high-quality near-infrared polarization vectors in these regions. In L1495/B213, the percent polarization increases with column density up to AV ∼ 9 mag, the limits of our data. The radiative torques model for grain alignment can explain this behavior, but models that invoke turbulence are inconsistent with the data. We also combine our data with published optical and near-infrared polarization measurements in Taurus. Using this large sample, we estimate the strength of the plane-of-sky component of the magnetic field in nine subregions. This estimation is done with two different techniques that use the observed dispersion in polarization angles. Our values range from 5 to 82 μG and tend to be higher in denser regions. In all subregions, the critical index of the mass-to-magnetic flux ratio is sub-unity, implying that Taurus is magnetically supported on large scales (∼2 pc). Within the region observed, the B213 filament takes a sharp turn to the north and the direction of the magnetic field also takes a sharp turn, switching from being perpendicular to the filament to becoming parallel. This behavior can be understood if we are observing the rim of a bubble. We argue that it has resulted from a supernova remnant associated with a recently discovered nearby gamma-ray pulsar.