Observations of the Goldreich-Kylafis effect in star-forming regions with XPOL at the IRAM 30 m telescope

Abstract

Context. The Goldreich-Kylafis (GK) effect causes certain molecular line emission to be weakly linearly polarized, e.g., in the presence of a magnetic field. Compared to polarized dust emission, the GK effect potentially yields additional information along the line of sight through its dependence on velocity in the line profile.Aims. Our goal was to detect polarized molecular line emission toward the DR21(OH), W3OH/H2O, G34.3+0.2, and UYSO 1 dense molecular cloud cores in transitions of rare CO isotopologues and CS. The feasibility of such observations had to be established by studying the influence of polarized sidelobes, e.g., in the presence of extended emission in the surroundings of compact sources.Methods. The observations were carried out with the IRAM 30 m telescope employing the correlation polarimeter XPOL and using two orthogonally polarized receivers. We produced beam maps to investigate instrumental polarization.Results. While a polarized signal is found in nearly all transitions toward all sources, its degree of polarization in only one case surpasses the polarization that can be expected from instrumental effects. It is shown that any emission in the polarized sidelobes of the system can produce instrumental polarization, even if the source is unpolarized. Tentative evidence of astronomically polarized line emission with pL ≳ 1.5% was found in the CS(2-1) line toward G34.3+0.2. © 2008 ESO.