Dispersion of magnetic fields in molecular clouds. III.

Abstract

We apply our technique on the dispersion of magnetic fields in molecular clouds to high spatial resolution Submillimeter Array polarization data obtained for Orion KL in OMC-1, IRAS 16293, and NGC 1333 IRAS 4A. We show how one can take advantage of such high-resolution data to characterize the magnetized turbulence power spectrum in the inertial and dissipation ranges. For Orion KL we determine that in the inertial range the spectrum can be approximately fitted with a power law k -(2.9±0.9) and we report a value of 9.9mpc for λAD, the high spatial frequency cutoff presumably due to turbulent ambipolar diffusion. For the same parameters we have k -(1.4±0.4) and a tentative value of λAD ≃ 2.2mpc for NGC 1333 IRAS 4A, and k -(1.8±0.3) with an upper limit of λAD ≲ 1.8mpc for IRAS 16293. We also discuss the application of the technique to interferometry measurements and the effects of the inherent spatial filtering process on the interpretation of the results. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.