Helical Fields and Filamentary Molecular Clouds II - Axisymmetric Stability and Fragmentation

In Paper I (Fiege & Pudritz, 1999), we constructed models of filamentary molecular clouds that are truncated by a realistic external pressure and contain a rather general helical magnetic field. We address the stability of our models to gravitational fragmentation and axisymmetric MHD-driven instabilities. By calculating the dominant modes of axisymmetric instability, we determine the dominant length scales and growth rates for fragmentation. We find that the role of pressure truncation is to decrease the growth rate of gravitational instabilities by decreasing the self-gravitating mass per unit length. Purely poloidal and toroidal fields also help to stabilize filamentary clouds against fragmentation. The overall effect of helical fields is to stabilize gravity-driven modes, so that the growth rates are significantly reduced below what is expected for unmagnetized clouds. However, MHD ``sausage'' instabilities are triggered in models whose toroidal flux to mass ratio exceeds the poloidal flux to mass ratio by more than a factor of $\sim 2$. We find that observed filaments appear to lie in a physical regime where the growth rates of both gravitational fragmentation and axisymmetric MHD-driven modes are at a minimum.Comment: 16 pages with 18 eps figures. Submitted to MNRA

Helical Fields and Filamentary Molecular Clouds

We study the equilibrium of pressure truncated, filamentary molecular clouds that are threaded by rather general helical magnetic fields. We first derive a new virial equation appropriate for magnetized filamentary clouds, which includes the effects of non-thermal motions and the turbulent pressure of the surrounding ISM. When compared with the data, we find that many filamentary clouds have a mass per unit length that is significantly reduced by the effects of external pressure, and that toroidal fields play a significant role in squeezing such clouds. We also develop exact numerical MHD models of filamentary molecular clouds with more general helical field configurations than have previously been considered. We also examine the effects of the equation of state by comparing ``isothermal'' filaments, with constant total (thermal plus turbulent) velocity dispersion, with equilibria constructed using a logatropic equation of state. We perform a Monte Carlo exploration of our parameter space to determine which choices of parameters result in models that agree with the available observational constraints. We find that both equations of state result in equilibria that agree with the observational results. Moreover, we find that models with helical fields have more realistic density profiles than either unmagnetized models or those with purely poloidal fields; we find that most isothermal models have density distributions that fall off as r^{-1.8} to r^{-2}, while logatropes have density profiles that range from r^{-1} to r^{-1.8}. We find that purely poloidal fields produce filaments with steep density gradients that not allowed by the observations.Comment: 21 pages, 8 eps figures, submitted to MNRAS. Significant streamlining of tex

Statistical Assessment of Shapes and Magnetic Field Orientations in Molecular Clouds through Polarization Observations

We present a novel statistical analysis aimed at deriving the intrinsic shapes and magnetic field orientations of molecular clouds using dust emission and polarization observations by the Hertz polarimeter. Our observables are the aspect ratio of the projected plane-of-the-sky cloud image, and the angle between the mean direction of the plane-of-the-sky component of the magnetic field and the short axis of the cloud image. To overcome projection effects due to the unknown orientation of the line-of-sight, we combine observations from 24 clouds, assuming that line-of-sight orientations are random and all are equally probable. Through a weighted least-squares analysis, we find that the best-fit intrinsic cloud shape describing our sample is an oblate disk with only small degrees of triaxiality. The best-fit intrinsic magnetic field orientation is close to the direction of the shortest cloud axis, with small (~24 deg) deviations toward the long/middle cloud axes. However, due to the small number of observed clouds, the power of our analysis to reject alternative configurations is limited.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Strong Dynamical Heterogeneity and Universal Scaling in Driven Granular Fluids

Large scale simulations of two-dimensional bidisperse granular fluids allow us to determine spatial correlations of slow particles via the four-point structure factor $S_4(q,t)$. Both cases, elastic ($\varepsilon=1$) as well as inelastic ($\varepsilon < 1$) collisions, are studied. As the fluid approaches structural arrest, i.e. for packing fractions in the range $0.6 \le \phi \le 0.805$, scaling is shown to hold: $S_4(q,t)/\chi_4(t)=s(q\xi(t))$. Both the dynamic susceptibility, $\chi_4(\tau_{\alpha})$, as well as the dynamic correlation length, $\xi(\tau_{\alpha})$, evaluated at the $\alpha$ relaxation time, $\tau_{\alpha}$, can be fitted to a power law divergence at a critical packing fraction. The measured $\xi(\tau_{\alpha})$ widely exceeds the largest one previously observed for hard sphere 3d fluids. The number of particles in a slow cluster and the correlation length are related by a robust power law, $\chi_4(\tau_{\alpha}) \approx\xi^{d-p}(\tau_{\alpha})$, with an exponent $d-p\approx 1.6$. This scaling is remarkably independent of $\varepsilon$, even though the strength of the dynamical heterogeneity increases dramatically as $\varepsilon$ grows.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Magnetic Fields in Star-Forming Molecular Clouds II. The Depolarization Effect in the OMC-3 Filament of Orion A

Polarized 850 micron thermal emission data of the region OMC-3 in the Orion A molecular cloud are presented. These data, taken in 1998 with the SCUBA polarimeter mounted on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, have been re-reduced using improved software. The polarization pattern is not suggestive of a uniform field structure local to OMC-3, nor does the orientation of the vectors align with existing polarimetry maps of the OMC-1 core 20' to the south. The depolarization toward high intensity regions cannot be explained by uniform field geometry except in the presence of changing grain structure, which is most likely to occur in regions of high density or temperature (i.e. the embedded cores). The depolarization in fact occurs along the length of the filamentary structure of OMC-3 and is not limited to the vicinity of the bright cores. Such a polarization pattern is predicted by helical field models for filamentary clouds. We present three scenarios to explain the observed polarization pattern of OMC-3 in terms of a helical field geometry. Qualitative models incorporating a helical field geometry are presented for two cases.Comment: 57 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables; accepted for publication in Ap

Effects of Kynurenine Pathway Inhibition on NAD+ Metabolism and Cell Viability in Human Primary Astrocytes and Neurons

The kynurenine pathway (KP) is the principle route of L-Tryptophan (TRP) metabolism, producing several neurotoxic and neuroprotective metabolic precursors before complete oxidation to the essential pyridine nucleotide nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+). KP inhibition may prove therapeutic in central nervous system (CNS) inflammation by reducing the production of excitotoxins such as quinolinic acid (QUIN). However, KP metabolism may also be cytoprotective through the de novo synthesis of intracellular NAD+. We tested the hypothesis that the KP is directly involved in the maintenance of intracellular NAD+ levels and SIRT1 function in primary astrocytes and neurons through regulation of NAD+ synthesis. Competitive inhibition of indoleamine 2,3 dioxygenase (IDO), and quinolinic acid phosphoribosyltransferase (QPRT) activities with 1-methyl-L-Tryptophan (1-MT), and phthalic acid (PA) respectively, resulted in a dose-dependent decrease in intracellular NAD+ levels and sirtuin deacetylase-1 (SIRT1) activity, and correlated directly with reduced cell viability. These results support the hypothesis that the primary role of KP activation during neuroinflammation is to maintain NAD+ levels through de novo synthesis from TRP. Inhibition of KP metabolism under these conditions can compromise cell viability, NAD-dependent SIRT1 activity and CNS function, unless alternative precursors for NAD+ synthesis are made available